Making Springs At Home

[This Old Tony] teaches us how to make springs on a lathe in this video done in the style of How It’s Made. Mixed in with snark, in his usual style, is a lot of useful information.

The Machinery’s Handbook certainly has all the information one would need to design the basic spring shapes, but it’s not always necessary. [Tony] points out that cheating is entirely acceptable. For example, if you need a spring that’s close to the dimensions of a standard spring, simply copy over the values from the standard spring. He explains all the terminology needed to decrypt the pages in your engineering tome of choice.

He shows the basics of winding a spring on a mandrel (or that round metal thing, if you want to use the industry term). First wind the inactive coils, then set your lathe to the desired spring pitch. Engage it as if threading, then disengage and wind the final inactive coils. A quick trip to the sander squares the ends of a standard coil spring. However, the tools can also be used to make torsion springs, or even exotic combination springs.

For a good… educational laugh, watch the whole video after the break.

Filed under: hardware

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