Itsy bitsy teenie weenie ---- SPRING?

[Dave Harris sctchbld]

Racking my brain to try to come up with a source for a spring small enough to be a hood spring for one of my Junkyard cars it struck me -- what was used in the little clasps on jewelery? Now I know!! A very tiny spring!! Take a look.
I'll bet many of you will find a use in your modeling for a tiny spring -- for instance-- ever seen any one model HO garage door springs ?


   

[tetters]

What a great idea!

(runs off to raid the wife's jewelry box...heh!)

[eightyeightfan1]

Thats a neat idea.
Couldn't of you used Kadee HO scale coupler spring?

[tomustang]

Atlas N scale truck springs are close to that size

[nomad]

Then he wouldn't have the fun of explaining to his wife why her necklace falls off

Loren

[Dave Harris sctchbld]

Thats a neat idea.
Couldn't of you used Kadee HO scale coupler spring?

A Kadee spring is about the right size to use for a front suspension spring on a 1/64 car.
An N scale spring might work -- I don't think I have ever had one.
   

[doctorwayne]

You could also make your own springs, using some small-diameter brass wire and a suitably-sized piece of music wire as a mandrel. The wire could be wound around the mandrel manually, or you could chuck the mandrel in a drill and crank-out some l-o-o-o-o-n-g springs, then cut them to size. Of course, using soft brass wire won't make true springs, although they should look spring-like.

Wayne

[Dave Harris sctchbld]

You could also make your own springs, using some small-diameter brass wire and a suitably-sized piece of music wire as a mandrel. The wire could be wound around the mandrel manually, or you could chuck the mandrel in a drill and crank-out some l-o-o-o-o-n-g springs, then cut them to size. Of course, using soft brass wire won't make true springs, although they should look spring-like.

Wayne

Yes , making springs is not all that difficult. In fact this little panel roller I built has 4 interchangeable mandrels just for that purpose. You can see one of them peeking out a bit in this picture . They fit into a collar on the shaft thru the roller & are locked with a set screw. The mandrels have a hole drilled thru them to trap the wire used for the spring. With the right material, you can make a working spring.

   

   

   

[Trolleyfan]

Of course you could make reasonable looking springs by winding fine copper wire around a piece of wire close to the size of the spring you need. In your case you don't need the spring to be a working spring so this would work for you. I've made springs out of .007" spring steel wound around a .015" mandrel for some of my trolley poles but these are working springs and something you wouldn't need for the junkyard cars you want to detail. All you would need is some stranded copper wire to provide you with the materials to turn out hundreds of non-working springs at a fraction of the cost of the jewelry clasps you are scavenging the springs out of now.