How to wind a spring with your own hands

According to experts, it is possible to produce a spring with high performance characteristics and in compliance with all necessary parameters only using special factory equipment. Nevertheless, the technological process itself is not complicated.

The question of how to make a spring at home is quite relevant. This is due to the fact that there are situations when the home craftsman may not have a spring of the required diameter at hand. In this case, you have to make it yourself. How to make a spring with your own hands? What tools are needed for this? You will find information on how to make a spring at home in this article.

About the diameter

How to make a spring? What wire diameter should I choose? Experts recommend using consumables with a diameter of no more than 0.2 cm. Due to the fact that such wire bends easily, it does not require preliminary heat treatment. Before winding onto the mandrel, it is unbent and carefully aligned. When choosing the diameter for the mandrel, you should proceed from the dimensions of the future spring. In other words, the internal cross-section of the product must be taken into account. Many craftsmen compensate for elastic deformations of the wire by selecting mandrels of obviously smaller diameter. When working with wire thicker than 0.2 cm, difficulties often arise when winding it onto the mandrel. In this case, you will have to perform preliminary annealing.

Calculation No. 1.

We begin the calculation in Excel and on the “Calculation No. 1” sheet we create a simple program that will allow you to quickly calculate the diameter of the mandrel and the pitch of the helical groove depending on the tensile strength of the round wire material.

Initial data:

1. Wire diameter d

write in mm

to cell D3: =2,5

2. Inner diameter of spring D 2

enter in mm

to cell D4: =22,5

3. Spring winding pitch t

in mm enter

to cell D5: =7,5

4. Tensile strength of wire material [ σ in ]

We enter in kg/mm2

to cell D6: =160

Calculation results:

5. Pitch of the helical groove of the mandrel to

in mm we define

in cell D8: =D5*1.065 =7,988

tо= t *1.065

The coiling pitch of the spring is taken to be increased by 6.5% relative to the given spring pitch due to the settlement that occurs after testing.

6. Coefficient correcting the diameter of the mandrel relative to the internal diameter of the spring k

calculate

in cell D9: =1.652-0.1455*LN (D6) =0,914

k= 1.652-0.1455* ln [ σ in ]

7. Mandrel diameter D o

in mm we calculate

in cell D10: =D9*D4 =20,555

D o =k*D 2

Where should I start?

Experts recommend using wire from an old spring whose diameter does not suit the owner. The craftsman will only have to align it and wind it onto a mandrel with a cross-section of the required size. To do this, the wire must be absolutely straight. It will be much more plastic if it is processed in a special oven. If you don’t have one, any other device that can be heated with firewood will do. According to experienced craftsmen, birch provides sufficient heat for firing. After lighting the stove, you need to wait for the wood to burn in it. Only coals should remain. You should put the old spring in them. If the product is hot enough, it will turn red. Now the spring can be moved to the side so that it cools in the air. After this procedure, the metal will become plastic and easy to work with.

Accepted notations for calculations

Initial data n - number of working turns; p. - total number of turns; t—step of the working part; Do—inner diameter; Dcp - average diameter. Copier parameters: I - length of the working part; DKon is the inner diameter of the groove; DHJ1 is the diameter of the neutral line of turns wound onto the mandrel; k — OipUkop — correction factor; T is the pitch of the helix of the working part; T is the pitch of the helix of the input and output parts. Mandrel: d—diameter. Intermediate calculated values; L is the length of one coil of the spring without taking into account the pitch; D is the average diameter of the coils of the spring wound on the mandrel; X is the tabular coefficient for determining the neutral line during bending; B is a coefficient that takes into account the spring properties of the wire; popr - the number of working coils of the spring wound onto the mandrel, taking into account the elasticity of the wire; L1 is the length of the wire passing along the working part of the copier; L2 is the length of the wire of the working coils of the spring wound on the mandrel; L3 is the length of the wire wound on the mandrel, taking into account the preloaded turns; Lch is the length of the spring wire according to the drawing.

How to make a spring?

After waiting until the old product has cooled down sufficiently, they begin to unwind it. Absolutely straight wire should be wound onto the mandrel. For those who do not know how to make a spring, experts recommend placing the coils close together. At this stage, the master will have to make physical effort. The mandrel is clamped in a bench vice.

The work will be much easier if you use pliers. Judging by the reviews of experienced craftsmen, very often beginners have difficulty selecting the size of the mandrel. It is possible that you will have to work not with one mandrel, but with several with different sections. The diameter for a homemade spring in this case is selected experimentally.

Hardening of the product

For those who are interested in how to make a spring themselves, experienced craftsmen also advise paying attention to its hardening. This procedure consists of heat treatment of the product in order to give it the required elasticity.

A spring that has undergone hardening becomes much harder and more durable compared to its original state. Heat treatment is performed in special furnaces at temperatures from 830 to 870 degrees. You can also cope with this work at home using a regular gas burner. Since there are usually no temperature sensors in such devices, the home craftsman will have to control the process visually. The color of the item being heated can be used as a guide. When heated to 800 degrees, the metal turns cherry red. This means that it is too early to remove the product from the oven. If the spring is hot enough (870 degrees), it will turn light red. Now it should be cooled. Transformer or spindle oil is suitable for this purpose. In special factory thermal furnaces, metals are heated to 1050 degrees. Products at this temperature regime acquire orange shades.

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Hot manufacturing method

Winding springs on lathes using this method is available for the manufacture of products from bar material with a diameter of 10 mm or more. The technological process consists of a number of stages:

trimming and subsequent heating;
guying and rolling of ends;
reheat;
winding made of heated material;
the ends of the workpiece are cut off;
layout and straightening of the product, subsequent heat treatment;
sharpening and grinding of ends, corrosion protection, dimensional control and testing (strength, wear resistance, etc.).

The workpiece is heated in a short time, and a mandatory condition must be met - uniform heating throughout the entire volume. Hot coiling requires tools and equipment (mandrel, hammers, pliers, wedges, etc.). The coiler needs to have all of the above on hand when performing work on the manufacture of springs. The mandrel is needed for winding springs on lathes, and the workpiece is secured to it using a wedge. The pliers have the shape of sponges that provide holding, installation and rotation of the part.

During the work process, you need to be guided by technological instructions that will ensure the production of high-quality products. In order to reduce waste when producing short products, a long spiral is laid on the mandrel, i.e., a blank is made for several parts. The process of winding springs on large lathes involves almost the same operation steps that are used for medium and small workpieces.

Final stage

After the hardening procedure, the spring should be compressed and left in this position for two days. Then, using a sharpening machine, its ends are processed. This will give the handicraft the required size. After completing all of the above steps, the spring is considered ready for use. According to experts, homemade products cannot be compared with similar factory-made products.

However, non-standard springs are widely used in various mechanisms. If they are used in a gentle manner, the springs will last quite a long time.

Most often, the question of how to make a spring yourself, using improvised means, does not arise. However, there are situations when a spring of the required diameter is not at hand. It is in such cases that the need arises to make this element with your own hands.

Making a small spring is quite possible

Of course, springs for critical mechanisms operating under intensive conditions are best manufactured in production conditions, where it is possible not only to select correctly, but also to comply with all the parameters of the technological process. If you need a non-standard spring for use in a mechanism that will be operated in a gentle mode, then you can make it at home.

How to make a mandrel template for winding a speaker coil?

You can make a template for rewinding speakers from any suitable metal: steel, duralumin, brass or bronze.

But it is not necessary to use more expensive non-ferrous metals instead of cheap steel. Even if the steel template is stored in a damp place, it can be wiped with machine oil or petroleum jelly to protect it from corrosion.

I also do not advise you to waste time and money on making a template of a more complex design, as some printed publications recommend. It is especially expensive to make a composite template when you only need to rewind one loudspeaker head.

It is much easier to make a template in the form of a simple cylinder with a slight taper. The winding technology, which I will tell you about below, does not require high precision when making a template, so a turner of the least qualifications can turn such a mandrel. And in some cases, you can even pick up something ready-made. Thus, some craftsmen use bodies of electrolytic capacitors of a suitable size as a mandrel.

But, as for the outer surface of the mandrel, it should be treated to a mirror shine. This will be the only price to pay for the simplicity of the design. If the turner is too lazy to do this, then you can polish the surface of the template yourself by clamping the mandrel into the chuck of a drilling machine or hand-held electric drill. The required taper in the region of 0.05 by 50 mm can also be obtained by final grinding and polishing of the mandrel.

It is also quite simple to draw a sketch of such a template for a turner. The diameter is chosen equal to the diameter of the core.

The length of the mandrel is chosen with a margin, one and a half to two times longer than the size of the intended sleeve.

The diameter of the shank can be set to 9mm so that it fits into the chuck of any hand drill.

But what to do if there are no lathes in the visible space?

To make a template of small diameter, you can use electrolytic capacitors of a suitable size.

True, we need to clarify here. The housings of electrolytic capacitors are produced by drawing from sheet aluminum. Therefore, the shape of the outer surface of the case may differ from the shape that we need. If the deviation is small, then it can be compensated for during grinding, but if it is large, then it is better to choose another capacitor.

The capacitor can be secured using an ordinary screw, pos. 1.

If, when screwing a screw into the capacitor, the foil from which the plates are made begins to rotate inside the housing along with the screw, then you can screw one or several smaller screws from the edge, position 2.

The screw position 2 must have a countersunk head so that the latter does not later cause the template to run out.

To secure the capacitor in the drill chuck, we need several parts. The dimensions and shape of the parts can be arbitrary. The only requirement for the “Shaft” is that it fits in the drill chuck.

Screw.
Sleeve.
Plank.
Shaft.

The diameter of the holes in the strip, position 3, should be slightly larger than the diameter of the screws, position 1, so that the runout of the cylindrical surface of the capacitor relative to the axis of symmetry can be eliminated.

This is what the device for mounting a capacitor in a drill chuck looks like.

The surface of the capacitor can be fine-tuned using sandpaper and an electric drill clamped in a vice.

The arrow indicates sandpaper.

You can polish the surface using a piece of felt and GOI paste.

This is what happened.

You can measure the diameter of the core using a caliper, unless, of course, the speaker housing interferes with this, which sometimes happens.

The picture shows just such a case. The Columbia rests against the upper part of the hull.

If this does happen, then the measurement can be made using a meter from the kitchen.

Help for those who studied in the computer era. A drawing room is a set of drawing tools.

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What you need

To make your own spring, prepare the following supplies and equipment:

steel wire, the diameter of which should correspond to the cross-sectional size of the turns of your future spring product;
a regular gas burner;
a tool that every locksmith workshop must have;
bench vice;
a stove, which can also be used as a heating device for household purposes.

It is easier to wind a spiral using devices, the design of which depends on the size and stiffness of the spring

The wire, if its diameter does not exceed 2 mm, does not need to be subjected to preliminary heat treatment, since it is easy to bend without it. Before winding such wire onto a mandrel of the required diameter, it must be unbent and carefully aligned along the entire length of the winding.

When choosing the diameter of the mandrel, you should take into account the size of the spring that you are going to make at home. To compensate for the elastic deformation of the wire, the diameter of the mandrel is chosen slightly smaller than the required size of the internal cross-section of the future product.

Coil spring winding device

If the diameter of the wire from which you are going to make a spring with your own hands is more than 2 mm, it must first be annealed, since without such a procedure it will be difficult to align it and wind it onto the mandrel.

Device for winding coil springs

Helical cylindrical single-core springs are widely used in various machines and devices.
Most often, springs are made from round wire, since the stresses and deformations in them are distributed fairly evenly, and their cost (compared to other springs) is the lowest. The proposed device is used for winding cylindrical springs with a diameter of up to 11 mm from wire with a diameter of 1.5 mm. Of course, the dimensions of the device can be changed to produce springs from wire of a larger diameter.

All parts of the device are made of steel. The left and right posts are cut from 5 mm thick steel strip. A groove 8 mm wide is cut into each rack. In these grooves, a handle rod 4 is installed, as well as prisms 5, which support the handle rod from below, pressing it to the upper edge of the groove.

The prism has a slider that moves in the groove of the stand, ensuring the desired position of the stand relative to the handle rod.

When replacing a handle rod of one diameter with another, the prism has to be moved. The prism with the slider can be machined entirely, or you can make the slider separately and press it into the prism itself, as was done in this case.

In the upper part of the left rack there are holes for the guide sleeve 1 and for a short threaded rod 2, on which a pedometer plate 3 is secured with a nut to adjust the pitch of the wound spring. Please note that the hole for the wire in the guide bushing is drilled after installing the bushing on the stand, and a similar hole in the threaded rod is drilled after attaching the pedometer plate to it. A 12 mm steel strip measuring 20x110 mm was used as the base for the device. Racks 6 are attached to the base at both ends using two bolts.

Before work, clamp the device in a vice or secure it to a workbench with a pair of clamps. Pass the wire through a series of holes: in the guide sleeve, in the pin, through the slot at the end of the handle rod and secure it by wrapping it around the slot in the rod.

Rotating the rod, place turns of wire on it with the required pitch. Adjust the size of this step with a pedometer plate, turning it on a pin, i.e. setting the corresponding working sector of the plate to the desired position.

Having wound the required number of turns, stop the handle. Be careful: the unloaded spring can turn the handle in the opposite direction several times. In addition, when the load is removed from the spring, the number of turns will decrease and the diameter will increase slightly. So the diameter of the rod should always be less than the required internal diameter of the spring.

The surface of the finished spring is hardened, so it is better to release it at a temperature of 260-300 ° C (heating is carried out in oil). The duration of exposure at this temperature is 5 minutes for each millimeter of wire diameter.

Step-by-step instruction

The first thing you need to do if you are going to make a spring with your own hands is to select the material for such a product. The optimal material in this case is another spring (the main thing is that the diameter of the wire from which it is made matches the cross-section of the coils of the spring that you need to make).

By selecting material from an old spring, you will be sure that the wire is made of hardened high carbon steel

Annealing the wire for the spring, as mentioned above, will allow you to make it more flexible, and you can easily align it and wind it on the mandrel. To perform this procedure, it is best to use a special stove, but if you do not have one at your disposal, then you can use any other device that heats wood.

In such a stove you need to light birch wood and, when it burns down to coals, put a spring in it, the wire from which you are going to use. After the spring is red-hot, the coals must be moved to the side and the heated product allowed to cool along with the stove. After cooling, the wire will become much more flexible, and you can easily work with it at home.

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The wire that has become soft should be carefully aligned and begin to be wound onto a mandrel of the required diameter. When performing this procedure, it is important to ensure that the turns are located close to each other. If you have never winded springs before, you can first watch a training video, which is easy to find on the Internet.

You can use a screwdriver to wind a small spring.

In order for your new spring to have the required elasticity, it must be hardened. Heat treatment such as hardening will make the material harder and more durable. To perform hardening, the finished spring must be heated to a temperature of 830–870°, for which you can use a gas burner. You can determine that the required hardening temperature has been reached by the color of the hot spring: it should turn light red. To accurately determine this color, also rely on the video. After heating to the required temperature, the spring must be cooled in transformer or spindle oil.

Heated steel colors

After hardening, the spring should be kept in a compressed state for 20–40 hours, and then its ends should be processed on a sharpening machine to make a product of the required size.

After completing all the above procedures, you can begin to use the spring you made with your own hands for its intended purpose.

Springs are elastic structural elements that serve to accumulate or dissipate mechanical energy. They surround us on all sides - under the keys of the computer keyboard, in the car suspension and in the lifting mechanism of the sofa. The most common are coil compression springs. There are several ways to make them.

How to make and harden a spring at home

Almost every home craftsman knows that it is possible to make a spring from almost any wire and successfully use it in everyday life. Basically, there are no problems with making the part yourself. However, sometimes situations arise in which it is necessary to either make a spring of non-standard dimensions, or give it increased strength and elasticity. To do this, you should resort to heat treatment operations. It is quite possible to harden a spring at home. It goes without saying that a homemade part should not be used in particularly critical devices operating under increased load. For such purposes, it is recommended to use factory-made springs. But for home use in a device operating in a lightweight mode, the technology in question is quite suitable.

Required tools and materials

In order to make and harden a wire spring with your own hands, you need:

Steel wire. The diameter is selected based on the necessary characteristics of the future product.
Ordinary gas burner.
Metalworking tools: pliers, hammer, etc.
Vise.
Stove. This may be, if available, a special one or an ordinary household one.

Additional devices that are selected individually in accordance with the size and stiffness of the spring can facilitate the process of winding the spiral.

If the use and hardening is intended to be made from wire with a diameter of less than 2 millimeters, then it may not be preheated. It will bend without any problems without this operation. However, before starting winding, it is recommended to straighten it along its entire length and completely level it.

When using wire with a diameter of more than 2 millimeters, it should be burned before starting work. Without this operation, aligning and winding it will be problematic.

Features of the operation

The right foundation is the key to success. In factory conditions, an alloy of non-ferrous metals (65G, 60HFA, 60S2A, 70SZA, Br. B2), alloy or carbon steel is used for production. During home production, the optimal base will be an old spring of the required diameter.
A special furnace is best suited for annealing. If this is not available, brick or metal will do.
For cooling after heating, it is recommended to use transformer oil. If it is not available, a spindle will do.

Sequencing

1. Before tempering the spring wire, you should check the base material and make sure that the wire used is carbon steel.

2. The annealing procedure, as mentioned earlier, can add plasticity. This will make the process of alignment and winding onto the mandrel easier. You can use a special oven or any suitable oven for this. In everyday life, it is possible to harden in the most suitable structure (metal or brick). To do this, a regular fire is lit and then the future spring is placed in the coal. After heating the workpiece red-hot, the wire must be removed and allowed to cool naturally. The cooled wire will be much softer and you can work with it comfortably.

3. The softened wire should be completely aligned and begin winding onto a mandrel of a suitable diameter. During the procedure, you need to control the tight arrangement of the turns to each other. To make it easier, you can use a screwdriver.

4. To impart the required elasticity, hardening will be required. Thanks to this heat treatment, the part is harder and more durable. Hardening springs involves heating them to a temperature of 830 to 870 degrees. To do this, you can use a gas burner. Earlier we talked about hardening metal at home.

It is unlikely that you will find a suitable thermometer at home that can accurately determine the temperature of a part. Therefore, you can navigate by the color of the metal. When the required temperature is reached, the workpiece will turn light red. We recommend watching a video with a detailed description of the heating temperature. After this, the spring is placed in a cooling medium (oil).

5. Afterwards, the hardened spring must be kept in a compressed state. This requires from 20 to 40 hours.

6. Finally, process and adjust to the required dimensions.

Correct implementation of such hardening will allow you to successfully use the spring in home mechanisms.

Coil compression springs

Elastic elements can have different spatial forms. Historically, the first springs mastered by man were leaf springs. You can still see them today - these are springs on heavy-duty trucks. With the development of technology, people have learned to make more compact coil springs that work in compression. In addition to them, spatial elastic elements are also used.

Design Features

During operation, such springs take a load along their axis. In the initial position, there are gaps between their turns. The applied external force deforms the spring, its length decreases until the coils touch. From this moment on, the spring is an absolutely rigid body. As the external force decreases, the shape of the product begins to return to its original shape until it is completely restored when the load disappears.

The main characteristics describing the geometry of the part are:

The diameter of the rod from which the spring is wound.
Number of turns.
Winding step.
External diameter of the part.

The external shape may differ from cylindrical and represent one of the figures of rotation: cone, barrel (ellipsoid) and others

The winding pitch can be constant or variable. The winding direction is clockwise and counterclockwise.

The cross-section of the turns can be round, flat, square, etc.

The ends of the turns are ground down to a flat shape.

Operating area

Cylindrical coil springs of constant outer diameter and constant pitch are used more widely than others. They are used in areas such as

Mechanical engineering.
Instrumentation.
Vehicles.
Mining industry.
Appliances .

and in other industries.

Use of springs in everyday life

Making springs

Nowadays, you can easily purchase almost any household product you need in stores. At the same time, the attention and creative efforts of amateur designers are increasingly directed to technically complex objects: tractors, all-terrain vehicles, cars and even airplanes. The approach of do-it-yourselfers to the implementation of planned projects is also changing; they are not afraid of the need to independently manufacture complex and precise parts, which may also be subject to stringent strength requirements. One of these typical elements, present in almost all energy-intensive structures, are helical cylindrical tension or compression springs. In this regard, many of our readers will be interested and, we hope, useful to familiarize themselves with the methodology developed by the Ukrainian engineer V.V. Vinichenko, which will help in the production of critical springs with the required quality and accuracy.

The proposed method of winding helical coil springs is implemented on a screw-cutting lathe using a special device consisting of a mandrel and a copier. A mandrel with a hook in the form of a hole in the end of the flange is attached to the machine chuck to fix the beginning of the spring wire. A holder with a copier is installed in the tool holder. The copier is a shaft with a cut helical groove of variable pitch, which rotates freely in two bearings. The grooves at the beginning and end of the copier ensure winding of the preloaded coils of the spring, and the central part ensures the winding of working coils with the required pitch and diameter.

The copier holder is a structure welded from a 40 mm steel plate, reinforced with a rib from a 10 mm strip, and two bearing housings. The right body is welded to the plate, and the left one is fastened with M12 bolts (to make it possible to replace the copier). Specific drawings for the holder are not presented, since they are dictated by the type of screw-cutting lathe and the size of the wound spring. The spring is manufactured in the following sequence. First, the workpiece - a measured piece of wire with an end bent at 90°, 4 - 5 d long, is passed from below under the copier and installed in the hole-hook of the mandrel. Then the copier is turned manually until the beginning of the groove coincides with the position of the wire. Its tension and constant contact with the screw groove of the copier is ensured by significant resistance bending of the spring steel of the workpiece. The process of forming a spring begins by turning on the machine spindle at minimum speed. The wire is wound onto the mandrel, and the pitch is set by the helical groove of the copier rotating in the bearings. Below is a method for calculating the parameters of the mandrel and copier, providing the required dimensions of the spring.

Spring requirements

The following properties are required for the work to function effectively:

high strength;
plastic;
elasticity;
wear resistance.

To ensure the design values of these parameters, it is necessary to correctly select the material, accurately calculate the dimensions, develop and follow the manufacturing technology.

State standards determine the requirements for the manufacture of springs. According to permissible deviations, they belong to one of the accuracy groups:

Schematic representation of a spring

Strict requirements are imposed on the accuracy of geometry and surface cleanliness.

Products with scratches and other external defects that reduce the resource of the product and its service life do not meet the standard

How to make a spring with your own hands from wire and in production: we describe it in detail

Steel springs can be of different configurations and it is not always possible to purchase the desired type - the product is quite rare on the market. For this reason, I make them myself for my needs.

Requirements for wire and its diameter

Steel wire for the manufacture of a spring, which will subsequently be hardened, must meet the requirements specified in GOST 14963-78. According to the document, it is classified according to the following criteria:

winding method (cold and hot);
method of surface finishing (without finishing and with finishing);
manufacturing accuracy (normal and increased);
class of mechanical properties (general and critical use);
diameter (from 0.5 to 14 mm);
type of delivery (in rods or coils).

At industrial enterprises, springs are made from wire with a diameter of no more than 16 mm using the cold winding method, and up to 80 mm using the hot method. In production, they are wound using a rotating mandrel, feed rollers and one or two stop pins.

Products are made from wire grades 51ХВА, 70С3А, 65С2ВА, 60С2А, 65Г, 60ХВА with a ground, polished surface or without grinding and polishing. Based on this characteristic and the manufacturing method, the wire is produced in rods or coils of the following groups:

A, B, C, D, E – with special finishing;
N - without finishing.

The wire symbol in the technical documentation and on accompanying tags consists of numbers and letters:

ХХХХХ (1) – Х (2) – Х (3) – Х (4) – ХХ (5) – ХХ (6) GOST 14963-78 (7)

Where:

1 – steel grade;
2 – surface finishing method;
3 – manufacturing accuracy;
4 — class of mechanical accuracy;
5 - winding method;
6 - diameter in mm;
7 - designation of the standard.

For example, a wire with a polished surface made of high-precision class I steel 60C2A for hot coil springs with a diameter of 2.0 mm will have the following designation:

60S2A – A – P – I – GN – 2.0 GOST 14963-78

The state standard specifies permissible maximum deviations, out-of-roundness and the inadmissibility of certain types of defects, as well as methods of packaging and transportation.

Spring calculation

To do this, you need to use the table in the spring section to correctly select the diameter of the steel wire, the number of turns and pitch. In this case, how the new spring should work - compression or tension - plays a huge role.

The last type of springs can have a rather complex design, but you can also make it yourself.

Having performed preliminary calculations and found out the thickness of the wire for a steel spring, the pitch and number of turns, as well as having determined the design features and created a drawing of the future spring, you can proceed to practical actions.

There is also special software for calculating all parameters:

Common mistakes

We clamp the mandrel in the chuck of the lathe. We insert the end of the steel wire into the hole in the mandrel, start the rotation and wind the steel string tightly.

After checking the thickness of the spring with a caliper, we cut the wire with wire cutters and watch how our spring increases in diameter.

In addition, removing it from the mandrel will be quite problematic - to do this you will have to cut the string at the very beginning of the turn.

Doing it right

We clamp the wire on the mandrel using a screw.

Now we need to create tension on the steel string before winding.

Using a regular piece of thick plastic to clamp the wire into the cutter holder will not be enough. We will need a special device with a guide, in which the tension of the wire can be adjusted by a pressure plate made of soft metal (copper or bronze).

It is also necessary to adjust the rotation speed of the lathe chuck and the movement of the work platform to obtain the desired spring pitch.

Material requirements

The strength parameters and fault tolerance of a product are largely determined by the material from which it was decided to be made. Metallurgists distinguish special spring steels in the classification of steels. They have a specific crystal structure, determined both by the chemical composition and the heat treatment of the products. Highly alloyed alloys of increased purity and high metallurgical quality provide high elasticity and ductility, and are able to retain their physical and mechanical properties after repeated deformations.

Spring alloys 60S2A, 50HFA and stainless steel 12Х18Н10Т have gained popularity among mechanism designers.

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Features of the technology

The technological process for manufacturing elastic elements depends on the technical requirements for the design. Making a spring is not as easy as an ordinary part, which should not have special elastic properties. This requires special equipment and equipment.

Winding of springs with a round coil section is carried out using the following methods:

Cold. Suitable for small and medium sizes (wire diameter up to 8 mm).
Hot. For large diameters.

Spring coiling technology

After winding, the elastic elements are subjected to various types of heat treatment. During this process, the product acquires the specified properties.

Cold manufacturing method

The technology of winding springs on lathes in Russia is considered more preferable. This is due to the fact that the hot method requires serious costs associated with the purchase of expensive additional equipment. The cold method has restrictions on the wire diameter; it does not exceed 16 mm. The equipment for this process consists of mandrels adapted to guide the metal thread on a rotating spool.

The type depends on the shape of the spring (cylindrical, barrel-shaped or conical). The device for tensioning and directing the wire is presented in the form of two rotating rollers. Moreover, the top one has a screw that allows you to adjust the tension and direction. When cold curling springs, metal with the necessary qualities is taken and the required part is made from it. At the end, heat treatment is carried out in order to get rid of internal stresses.

The technology itself looks like this. The steel wire is fed through a bar mounted on the equipment support, and the end is fixed with a clamp on the mandrel. The roller device exerts tension on the metal thread, which is important in the manufacture of the product. After turning on the machine, the winding of the spring begins, and the speed, depending on the diameter and material used, is in the range of 10 - 40 m/min. The number of turns is counted visually or with a counter. Upon completion, the craft is subject to mechanical processing.

This can be a technology for trimming compression springs with abrasive wheels on special machines or on industrial sharpeners. On products of other profiles, the technological ends must be trimmed or trimmed using a special device and an appropriate tool. The finished product is heat treated in electric ovens.

Cold coiling technology without hardening

First you need to do preparatory operations. Before a workpiece is wound from wire, it is subjected to a patenting procedure. It consists in heating the material to the plasticity temperature. This operation prepares the wire for the upcoming change in shape.

During the winding operation the following parameters must be maintained:

External diameter of the product (for some parts the internal diameter is standardized).
Number of turns.
Winding pitch.
The total length of the part, taking into account subsequent operations.
Compliance with the geometry of the end turns.

Cold coiling without tempering

Next, the end turns are ground down to a flat state. This must be done to ensure high-quality support for other structural parts, to prevent their destruction and the spring from slipping out.

The next stage of the technological process is heat treatment. Cold coiling of springs involves only tempering at low temperatures. It allows you to increase elasticity and relieve mechanical stresses that arise during winding.

It is extremely important to strictly adhere to the design heat treatment schedule, carefully controlling temperature and holding time.

After heat treatment, it is necessary to carry out test and control operations.

Further, if necessary, protective coatings can be applied to prevent corrosion. If they were applied by galvanic method, the products are reheated to reduce the hydrogen content in the surface layer.

Features of the curling process

The springs obtained after coiling during operation are subject to numerous repeated loads. Therefore, they must have high elasticity characteristics and withstand a large number of repeated loads during operation without settling or breaking. The first means that the springs, after loading, must quickly restore their intended shape and size. Practice shows that the durability of a product made on a machine directly depends on the quality and cleanliness of wire processing. The surface of the springs should not have scratches, hairs, marks or other defects, as they lead to a sharp decrease in the performance of the product.

An important point for winding springs is the use of mandrels (devices), they prevent warping during hardening and tempering. Even if the part is warped during hardening, the situation can be corrected by placing it on a mandrel before the tempering procedure. For large springs, the defect obtained during hardening is difficult to correct, since in this case fixation on the mandrel is difficult. To prevent this from happening, it is necessary to carry out heat treatment of the workpiece already on it.

Device for winding springs on a lathe

With any of the two methods of winding springs on lathes, the following parameters must be ensured:

inner, middle or outer diameter of the product;
general and working turns, their number;
height and pitch of the spring, taking into account subsequent processing.

Cold coiling technology with quenching and tempering

The first stages of the technology coincide with the previous process. Changes begin at the heat treatment stage. It is carried out in several stages:

Hardening. The workpiece is heated to a given temperature and held for 2 to 3 hours. Next, it is subjected to rapid cooling by immersing it in a container with mineral oil or saline solution. During the hardening stage, the workpieces must be in a horizontal position. This will avoid deformation
Vacation. The workpiece is heated to 200-300° and kept for several hours to relieve internal stresses and improve elastic properties.

Further measuring and control operations are also carried out. The workpieces that have passed the inspection are sent for sandblasting to remove scale. If necessary, shot blasting should also be done to increase the strength of the surface layer of the metal.

The process is completed by applying a protective coating.

Winding a spring on a lathe

This is a technical process during which wire or tape is processed. The result is a coil of springs of various shapes: cylindrical, conical, shaped or flat. The main production method is the cold method. Winding of the spring is carried out on a lathe, using a special device, manually or using an automatic machine. The production of such products is also possible using the hot method, the diameter of the wire used is from 10 mm. The choice of spring winding option depends on the size and type of metal.

Hot coiling technology with quenching and tempering

Before winding, the workpiece is heated to plasticity temperature using one of the following methods

muffle furnace;
gas-burner;
high frequency heating.

Next, the workpiece is supplied to the coiling equipment. The geometry is adjusted and flat ends are formed.

Heat treatment includes hardening and low-temperature tempering.

Heat treatment schedules are constructed based on the properties of the material and the dimensions of the workpiece.

Operating mode of the quenching and tempering furnace line

Next comes the control and measuring stage. Manufacturing is completed by applying anti-corrosion protection.

Equipment and fixtures used

To make an elastic element, specialized equipment is required. These are winding machines. You can make a part on a regular lathe, but it will require additional equipment with special equipment. Medium and large series are produced on semi-automatic machines that operate with minimal operator intervention. You can also make a spring from wire by hand. This will also require special equipment.

At the next stage of machining, the ends are ground on face grinding machines. For single production or small series, this can be done with a grinding wheel.

Heat treatment is carried out using mandrels that prevent product deformation in specialized furnaces for hardening and tempering. Both operations can be done in a universal oven.

Equipment and fixtures used

For quality control, load installations and measuring systems are used. In case of single production, measurements can be made with a universal tool.

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Steel wire, spring coiling, spring steel

Quality and technology

COMPRESSION SPRING COILING TECHNOLOGY

Coiling springs in a cold state are wound manually, on lathes using appropriate devices and spring-coiling machines from a coil of spring wire or rods with a diameter of up to 10 mm. Spring wire with a diameter of 0.2-1.0 mm is intended for winding the smallest ones. Such wire is stored in coils treated with a special lubricant and carefully packed with oiled linen material, which protects the wire from corrosion. It is not recommended to develop and promote riots. This leads to the formation of loops, nicks and twisting. It is impossible to correct these defects with such a diameter. For this reason, spring-winding machines for winding wire with a diameter of 0.2-1.0 mm do not have straightening mechanisms.

Spring wire with a diameter of 1-4 mm, intended for winding small ones. The riots are also stored in careful packaging, which protects them from mechanical damage and corrosion. Spring steel rods with a diameter of 6-10 mm are stored in preserved form, packed in special wooden boxes. All spring steels from the warehouse are delivered to the intermediate warehouse of the workshop, from where to the production area of the spring workshop. The bundle is unpacked, cleaned of grease, and the condition of the wire is visually determined. Before installing a coil of wire on a rotating spool, measure the diameter and inspect for loops, knots and nicks. Before coiling, it is recommended to straighten or straighten the wire rod between rollers with a coverage angle of 60° (Fig. 62), and it is recommended to select the diameter of the rollers as a multiple of four to six wire diameters. Straightening helps to identify possible delamination, increases endurance under variable bending deformations, and also increases its elastic limit. Straightening does not provide complete detection of delaminations and therefore has not been widely used in mass production. Straightening of spring wire with a diameter of 1 mm or more is possible using spring-coiling machines. For this purpose, correct winding mechanisms are installed on spring-coiling machines. Spring coiling The compression shape (see Fig. 53) can be cylindrical, conical or barrel-shaped. The technological process of manufacturing from wire with a diameter of 0.2 - 0.7 mm consists of the following operations: spiral winding; cutting off the outer turns and removing burrs; compression on a special mandrel until the turns touch; sharpening of ends; heat treatment and straightening; testing, quality and size control; coating with a protective layer; quality control of protective coating; testing and re-control of dimensions. The technological process for manufacturing small and medium-sized twisted wires with a diameter of 1.0–10 mm includes the following operations: sharpening and grinding the ends of compression springs; heat treatment; preliminary compression or stretching; testing, dimensional control; painting (coating) and their control.

Springs made from special grades of spring steel are subjected to hardening and tempering, while springs from high-carbon patented spring steel are subject to tempering only. When making small springs from patented carbon wire with a diameter of over 0.2 mm, hand-operated devices are used (Fig. 63 and 64). The wire is secured to a mandrel installed in a manually operated collet chuck that has a slot or a removable ring. The fastening of the end to the mandrel must be reliable. The quality of what is wound on the device depends on the tension and its direction when winding onto the mandrel, which is determined by the qualifications of the worker. Manual winding is very unproductive and is used only in single and small-scale production. For the production of large batches, cold winding is used on lathes with a different smooth mandrel, a nitron mounted in the headstock spindle, and another in the center of the tailstock. The wire is passed through a clamping device mounted on the longitudinal support of the machine, and its end is secured with a wedge clamp on the mandrel. The clamping device, exerting tension on the wire during winding, must ensure constant tension on the mandrel during the manufacturing process of the entire batch. The pitch of the spring is set by selecting the gears of the guitar and rotating the lead screw, which moves the longitudinal support of the machine. The winding speed depends on the wire diameter and ranges from 10 to 40 m/min. A more productive way is on converted lathes. Instead of the tailstock, a special device is installed on the machine bed, with the help of which the mandrel is attached and which tensions the wire when winding and moving it along the mandrel at a given pitch of the copying screw attached to the headstock of the machine. When winding with the outermost turns pressed, the part of the copier thread, where the spring turns should be wound tightly, is sealed taking into account a smooth transition from the outer diameter of the thread to the inner one.

In some cases, compression springs are wound onto smooth mandrels with tightly pressed coils. When chopping or cutting wire from a wound spring, the worker must remember its elastic properties. A long spring is cut into measured pieces with a certain number of turns manually or on a press. Wiring to a certain pitch is carried out manually or in a device, taking into account its settlement during subsequent compression and testing. The outer non-working coils of the spring are not routed. The selection of mandrels on hand-held devices, as well as on lathes, is usually carried out experimentally or according to experimental formulas, most often reflecting the specific conditions of a particular production. In this case, it is necessary to take into account the increase in the diameter of the spring due to elastic deformations after cold coiling and the decrease in diameter after heat treatment. Winding on lathes, compared to winding on automatic machines, is characterized by low productivity and requires very labor-intensive manual operations, which include: threading wire into a device for each coiled spring; cutting off a coiled spring from a wire riot; cutting long-wound into dimensional workpieces; routing at a given pitch with dense winding. The most modern and productive according to GOST is winding on spring-winding machines, which eliminate the use of manual operations. On automatic machines, only the end of the wire is manually threaded when installing a new reel. On automatic machines, the worker must remember that the minimum outer diameter of the wound spring must be at least five times the thickness of the wire. The winding mechanism of the machine is exposed to great forces and stress, which leads to frequent breakdown of machine parts. The processing of the ends of the outermost (non-working) turns is important in manufacturing. The essence of end processing is to create reference planes perpendicular to the axis. When processing the outermost non-working coils of the spring by any method, it is necessary to take into account the intensity of processing, on which the heating of the processed coils depends. With strong heating and subsequent cooling, cracks form and during further processing the outer turns break. When manufacturing critical springs, a more precise fit of the end coils to the supporting planes is necessary. To do this, process 1/4 of the turn along the end plane. The allowance for machining the ends is assigned depending on the intended purpose. For large allowances, a milling operation is provided. The ends are milled for large ones. Milling is carried out on horizontal and vertical milling machines when the processing of the end allowance is 2 mm or more. Milling of the ends is carried out on specially made mandrels equipped with powerful clamps and installed on the milling machine table in a vertical or horizontal position. The ends of most medium and small springs are processed manually on simple sharpening machines. The ends of non-essential springs or compression springs, the supporting planes of which do not affect the operation, are subjected to this treatment. The ends for critical purposes are processed in two operations: preliminary processing - sharpening and final processing - grinding in a special device that ensures the perpendicularity of the ends of the spring axis. In mass production, the ends are processed on automatic sharpening machines equipped with special magazines for pre-setting the spring before grinding between two grinding wheels, which are mounted on individual spindles and automatically adjust the feed for processing and simultaneously grind both ends. To sharpen the end turns, grinding wheels with different grain sizes and hardness are used. The brand of grinding wheel for sharpening the ends of the spring is selected depending on its size and grade of material. For large springs, use 50/40 grit grinding wheels, and for medium and small springs, use 40/25 grit wheels of medium hardness. For preliminary sharpening of the ends, grinding wheels with fine grains are used. During preliminary sharpening and final grinding, abundant emulsion cooling is used, which ensures cooling of the coils that heat up during processing. Mechanical processing of the supporting planes is determined by technical conditions. For non-essential compression springs, the end planes are sharpened on sharpening machines. In mass production, the end planes of compression springs are processed using hydraulic or pneumatic devices, providing high productivity due to quick installation and removal from the workbench. The end planes are ground after heat treatment. Compression springs are installed in special devices that ensure the perpendicularity of the ground supporting planes of the axle. In mass production, the end planes of the compression spring are ground using automatic grinding machines. Semi-automatic grinding machines provide high quality of the polished surface and perpendicularity of its axis.

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