Spring making

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I have made mainsprings and frizzen springs that are still working after 35 years. I tempered in my lead pot at 600 degrees and put on edge of pot after fishing it from the lead and let it cool after unplugging the pot.
 
ZUG said:
In my early years of spring making, I've used O-1, 1095, 1075 and 1084 and for me 1075 and 1084 worked the best for me. I also tried Kit Ravenshear's method of heat treating and I found it gave me the most broken springs. I've used the "torch-it by eye" method and found that gave me a 75% to 90% success ratio when I use a lead bath to do the tempering. Your shop lighting will have an effect on what colors you see on the
ZUG said:
In my early years of spring making, I've used O-1, 1095, 1075 and 1084 and for me 1075 and 1084 worked the best for me. I also tried Kit Ravenshear's method of heat treating and I found it gave me the most broken springs. I've used the "torch-it by eye" method and found that gave me a 75% to 90% success ratio when I use a lead bath to do the tempering. Your shop lighting will have an effect on what colors you see on the steel.
Click to expand...
A lead bath is great if you use a lead thermometer to keep at around 750°F. The full even contact of the steel in molten lead or salts gives the steel a heat that is evenly distributed. Nearly all warp, cracking, and breakage in heat treating steel is due to uneven heat distribution. In the case of 1095, if not tempered very soon after quenching, there is a good chance of it cracking or breaking from the stress of hardening. A quick temper of around 350°F usually lets off enough stress to keep it from breaking and allows you time to do other things if you need or want.
Click to expand...
 
45man said:
I have made mainsprings and frizzen springs that are still working after 35 years. I tempered in my lead pot at 600 degrees and put on edge of pot after fishing it from the lead and let it cool after unplugging the pot.
Click to expand...
Have you calibrated your pot with an accurate thermometer? I did my first spring the same as you, then found later the setting was off a hundred degrees. 600°f may work for you but I would never trust it to be ideal. Jim Kibler and John Bivins did extensive testing of lock spring making and came up with 750°F as the ideal all around spring temper combining dependability and durability. I do not recall all the steels they used in testing.
 
LRB said:
Have you calibrated your pot with an accurate thermometer? I did my first spring the same as you, then found later the setting was off a hundred degrees. 600°f may work for you but I would never trust it to be ideal. Jim Kibler and John Bivins did extensive testing of lock spring making and came up with 750°F as the ideal all around spring temper combining dependability and durability. I do not recall all the steels they used in testing.
Click to expand...

I found tempering in bluing salts to work well
 
Last edited:
I tempered one homemade lock spring by boiling in oil. It was spring stock from Dixie gun works. It did work. There is a post here somewhere about frying a spring in a 50/50 mix of clean oil and kerosene. The poster said it works.
 
Are anyone using a lab furnace or similar?
Setting the proper temp, allowing time for the part to achieve that consistent temp, and then quenching in appropriate solution seems simple.
Temper same way using proper temp for material.
Always pack in carbon to reduce scaling.
Tying to learn here...
William
 
Sam squanch said:
I tempered one homemade lock spring by boiling in oil. It was spring stock from Dixie gun works. It did work. There is a post here somewhere about frying a spring in a 50/50 mix of clean oil and kerosene. The poster said it works.
Click to expand...
It only works well when done at midnight on a full moon while chanting Bibbidi bobbidi boo over the boiling oil.
 
Last edited:
PhDBrewer said:
Are anyone using a lab furnace or similar?
Setting the proper temp, allowing time for the part to achieve that consistent temp, and then quenching in appropriate solution seems simple.
Temper same way using proper temp for material.
Always pack in carbon to reduce scaling.
Tying to learn here...
William
Click to expand...

Facebook market place
 
FlinterNick said:
You Don’t know much about color blindness apparently
Click to expand...
To be fair, the colour blindness most often discussed is deuteranopia or red-green colour blindness which is often characterized by not being able to distinguish the colour red. One of the guys I hunt with can’t see blood unless he puts a piece of TP on it because then it shows up as a dark splotch. One time he called his wife to help him find a deer. When she found him he was standing in an area that looked like someone had blown up a can of red paint and he was utterly oblivious to it.
Jay
 
Jay Templin said:
I used to temper blades in a thrift shop toaster oven.
Jay
Click to expand...
Not long ago many DIY at home blade makers used toaster ovens for the temper process. It seems they worked reasonably well but there were temperature spikes and dips due to the heat cycling of the toaster oven and the steel being so close to the heat coils. Many users wrapped their ovens with various methods of insulation which made them more reliable. Way back I just used our gas kitchen oven which seemed to work ok. Passable anyway. I monitored the process with grocery store quality oven thermometers. Had to use multiple thermometers because they all seem to give different readings, which may have been more because of their relative positions in the oven. NEVER trust a kitchen oven setting without comparing to a good reliable thermometer.
 
Colonial Boy said:
Easy, because colour blindness doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t see colours, it usually means that one confuses colours and if a colour blind person knows what the real colour of what he sees is then he has no problems.
Had a mate who was a telephone linesman and he was never caught out until just before retirement, so he was given an office job because legally he could no longer be a linesman
Click to expand...
I went online to learn some more on the types of color blindness and now have a more familiar understanding on the subject. I am now smarter than I was before:
  • Protanopia (aka red-blind) – Individuals have no red cones.
  • Protanomaly (aka red-weak) – Individuals have red cones and can usually see some shades of red.
 
LRB said:
Not long ago many DIY at home blade makers used toaster ovens for the temper process. It seems they worked reasonably well but there were temperature spikes and dips due to the heat cycling of the toaster oven and the steel being so close to the heat coils. Many users wrapped their ovens with various methods of insulation which made them more reliable. Way back I just used our gas kitchen oven which seemed to work ok. Passable anyway. I monitored the process with grocery store quality oven thermometers. Had to use multiple thermometers because they all seem to give different readings, which may have been more because of their relative positions in the oven. NEVER trust a kitchen oven setting without comparing to a good reliable thermometer.
Click to expand...
Torbjörn Åhman often uses the kitchen oven in his blacksmithing videos.
Here’s a link to one of his many interesting videos.
https://www.youtube.com/@torbjornahman
 
LRB said:
Not long ago many DIY at home blade makers used toaster ovens for the temper process. It seems they worked reasonably well but there were temperature spikes and dips due to the heat cycling of the toaster oven and the steel being so close to the heat coils
Click to expand...
I made it clear in a previous post that I'm not knowledgeable on this spring making skill but as regards toaster ovens, I use a convection toaster oven to powder coating unmentionable cast bullets. With the convection and an oven gauge inside i find that the found desired temperature is pretty easily maintained.
 

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