26-04-2021, 08:39 PM
You can't easily reset springs. If you stretch them past their limit they are ruined. And you can't easily compress them to be shorter. You can make small springs by winding spring wire around a suitable former on a lathe but then need to temper them. I did find these instructions for doing that. They do seem a little out of date though!
"Heat red hot and dip in an unguent made of mercury and the fat of bacon. This produces a remarkable degree of hardness and the steel preserves its tenacity and an elasticity which cannot be obtained by other means."
https://chestofbooks.com/reference/Henle...Tools.html
Failing having a supply of mercury and the fat of bacon on hand I would measure the spring (diameter, length, wire diameter) and just find something similar but shorter on AliExpress or other sites like that. Cheap enough to get a few to experiment with. And I don't think an A7 oil button is exactly a precision instrument so I imagine anything close would work?
Tony, a lathe is good for bending round things but I always liked this machine for some really nice free bending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yigRgG_NIyU
Simon
"Heat red hot and dip in an unguent made of mercury and the fat of bacon. This produces a remarkable degree of hardness and the steel preserves its tenacity and an elasticity which cannot be obtained by other means."
https://chestofbooks.com/reference/Henle...Tools.html
Failing having a supply of mercury and the fat of bacon on hand I would measure the spring (diameter, length, wire diameter) and just find something similar but shorter on AliExpress or other sites like that. Cheap enough to get a few to experiment with. And I don't think an A7 oil button is exactly a precision instrument so I imagine anything close would work?
Tony, a lathe is good for bending round things but I always liked this machine for some really nice free bending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yigRgG_NIyU
Simon