Spring making, coils folding over... help?

[Nick Hulme]

I'm sure that there is experience on this site to help you but I feel that the spring material already has some stresses built in it before you start winding the spring. If the spring material is stored in a coil that would do it. You may need to uncoil the wire and straighten it under tension.

You don't, trust me on this ;-)

Wire is a pain to wind and unwind tried doing it from a 15 kilo migwire spool to a 5 kilo. What a mess of wire, I think I ended up with 1.5 kg. Before I gave up

You need the large spool on a braked spindle and the small spool on a driven spindle, it works just fine, I used to wind wire for a mini-mig from my full size spools.

 

[Nick Hulme]

Anyone ever had this problem or know what is causing it and how to fix it?

Show your actual process in full, my Crystal Ball is in the shop for repair this week!

 

[stuartblack]

You don't, trust me on this ;-)



You need the large spool on a braked spindle and the small spool on a driven spindle, it works just fine, I used to wind wire for a mini-mig from my full size spools.

I was thinking along those lines but decided to go the quick and cheep method Will I never learn.

 

[bunnycabbit]

Wound to many custom springs creating working prototypes, and
designing working proof of concept. I took a variable DC power supply to heat the length of wire I would use for the spring and slightly annealing the music wire, made it very easy to create springs that had almost no flaws in the material caused by winding of the normal winding of semi-hardened spring steel. Then using the same power supply heat the wire evenly, while on a ceramic or insulated mandrel and quenched in oil, when the temp on the digital meter was right. It takes a little adjustment for the wire size difference and length of coil, but it can be calculated.

 

[Dubi]

Thanks DJP. I'm using 500g coils of wire, feeding out of a canister that can rotate relatively freely. If I cut the straps on the 500g coil when it's not sealed inside the canister, I expect it will explode into a giant tangled pile of spaghetti-like mess. Is there a method of transferring the 500g coil into something else, bigger perhaps, or doing some kind of partial uncoiling? Because to totally uncoil it would require a vast space - the wire is very very long!

Try to find a shop that sells cables and see if they have an old cable spool they would give you/sell you then you could carefully load the wire on to it.

 

[werowance]

what about putting the bucket on a turn table. like a lazy susan from the kitchen table so it could rotate easily while pulling the wire out of it?

 

[tornitore45]

The Lazy Susan Idea may work with a wire stiff enough to provide the necessary torque to rotate the assembly. The OP picture shows what seems to be a very fine wire, hardly capable to provide the necessary torque.

 

[mcostello]

It is still rotating in the wrong plane.

 

[tornitore45]

Not really. Any plane will do fine. Think of a piece of rubber hose bent at 90 degree, as you rotate one end in one plane the other end rotate in its normal plane. It kinda act as a U-joint.

 

[Justin Williams]

Thanks everyone. Once I made sure the wire was in the same plane as the mandril it worked great