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bending flat springs on edge?

JohnnyJohnsoninWI

Hot Rolled
Joined
Dec 9, 2003
Location
North Freedom, WI, USA
I've been approached with a requirement for low quantities of springs bent into "U" shapes with radii ranging from 1 to 3". The material may be high carbon or stainless steel. Wire dimensions are approximately .03" thick by .10 wide. They need to be formed on edge, rather than on the flat, so that the finished spring is only .03" high when laid on a table. I've never made springs like this before and am concerned about twisting or buckling during forming or heat treating. Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks,
John
 
I'm not sure how you would form these conventionally, other than milling or punching one at a time from stock. Trying to bend them edge-wise while keeping them flat sounds like a major pain. As far as the H/Ting goes, the more of them that you can stack & clamp together at once, the better. Enough of them together will support each other during the high temp cycle to control warping. If you had access to a wire edm, this would be a piece of cake to cut out of blue-tempered shim stock. Just stack & tack-weld the sheets together, then make one cut. You could cut roughly 78 springs (2 1/2") in one pass with little difficulty.
 
I bought a Duo Mite bender this week that might be the ticket for low quantities of springs at that size stock: OGI Duo-Mite

But it only came yesterday and I haven't used it yet. Unpacked it and inspected it, looks to be a quality tool. It has an edge-bending accessory which is what you'll need for the profile you described.

Got it at Travers Tool. They also carry a knockoff, much less expensive, but I didn't even consider that.
 
IME Keeping any flat bent on edge ''flat'' is a PITA.

Water jet from flat?

Possibly using pre HT steel?


Those would be my first port of call.
 
This is almost a joke. :)

Select your your material .100" thick sheet and then bend the sheet. After that, slice them like bread .030" thick.

Maybe......??

Regards,

Stan-
 
currently I work for a spring works, so what I would do first up is can you get R2 or Piano wire in that size? if you can then make your self a mandrel with a groove in it to hold it while you roll it 185-195* to allow for spring back, then H/T at say 300F for 10 - 15 mins. Think that will work good. But if that size is not avalable its going to be hard, will have to cut eather before bending or after.
Like to know how you get on.

Jake
 
Laser cut them from shim stock. I don't know what you mean by low quantities, but the minimum order charge for laser cutting is not frightening!
Or use annealed spring steel & temper them afterwards.
 
Hey Guys,

Thanks for all your replies and suggestions. I will check out the links offered and let you know what I've come up with. Quantities required are 100 each in 7 different sizes. I'd tell you what they are for, but I'd receive far more puns than helpful suggestions.
John
 
I asked about it at work today, 2nd way to do it is make it out of round wire and then press it flat, would need a good hyd press and hardened die's.

Jake.
 
Piston ring oil rails, Slinkies, and Smalley's circlips and springs are edge bent..But for small radii, I'd bend round wire and flatten. Have to experiment with initial condition. ie temper, to get good properties i n the finished part. Cutting out of flat stock will not give good fatigue life.
 
I have bent a lot of bigger, thicker material the hard way- and there is a reason they call it "the hard way". Certainly, they do bend things like Piston rings the hard way- but they use heavy, rigid, industrial grade machines that have been fine tuned over a long period of time, and they trashed a whole lot more than 100 samples getting them tuned in. And those machines cost a LOT of money. If you need ten thousand a week, or, more likely, a hundred thousand a week, you could justify a machine to bend em.

If it was me, for a few hundred, I would be emailing the laser guy my prints right now. Very small HAZ, easy to retune the hardness or temper.
Bending round bar and then flattening it is a big can of worms. With high carbon, you would not want to flatten em cold- you would need to do em hot. Stainless you could do cold, but tooling would be pretty high wear. And then you would need to make sure your squashing didnt create any cold shuts. Then totally reheat treat and temper.

My guess is, laser cut, if the material is prehard, you might not even have to heat treat at all. But even if you did, its gonna be faster, easier, less rejects, no dick around time figuring it out and wasting material on rejects- just call it in, pick em up.
 








 
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