Springs

6. Bring the wire guide near near enough for the wire to catch in the groove groove in the pin. Keep the wire guide away from the chuck. At this point, your setup s etup should look something like this:

7. When your setup is done, go ahead and start turning the handle. Turn Turn it so that the TOP of the chuck moves AWAY from you. As the arbor starts to turn, two things will happen. The wire guide will press upward: you can steady it with your right hand. It will also try to slide away to your right: let it slide for an inch or so, and then move your right hand to the left until the coils of wire lie flat against each other. What you're looking for is this: Stop turning the handle when you have three or more complete coils side by side on the arbor. The gap in the diagram, by the way, is a good thing. If you see it while the coils are laying down, that means the coils will be tight up against each other when you're done. (In an extension spring, how tight the coils are is called "initial tension". There's more info on this on the extension spring chapter.) 8. Turn the handle handle the other way SLOWLY until until the coils hang free on the arbor. Don't unwind so far that one of the jaws of the chuck catches the wire dogleg and starts to unwind the spring for you! 9. Slide the wire guide and the coils off the arbor. Check the diameter of the coils and see how close you are to what you want. Remember, if you need an exact diameter, the size of the coil may change when you relieve the stress in the spring. See the chapter on finishing techniques for information on this. 10. If the diameter is not what you want, change your arbor, repeating steps 2-9 until the spring is the right size. That's it.

How to make Springs

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