Sourcing & making springs for slot machines

Advice and guidance on repair and restoration techniques.
sutty
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Re: Sourcing & making springs for slot machines

Post by sutty »

By the way, quick tip, when I wound that longish spring, just above, I wound way more turns than I needed, as many as I could fit on my mandrel, giving myself plenty of turns to mess with, forming the ends, if it went wrong. Only works for one end, as you have to cut it off at the right length anyway, for the other end, so it's not that helpful. Anyway, the tip is this, I'm thinking particularly important on a longish thin spring like this. When I had completed my over wind, filling my mandrel, and cut it off, it unwound so many turns, that it ended up being only two thirds of the length of my mandrel, and had only just enough turns for my planned length.

Came as quite a surprise when I saw it, sitting there on the mandrel, not filling it anymore, and it took me a good few moments to ponder what had gone on. No idea how you calculate how many turns you would lose, for any given spring, but you will lose some, for sure, so wind it a little longer at least, and definitely get more wire than you need, as mentioned above by tallstory, you're bound to screw one or two up.
sutty
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Re: Sourcing & making springs for slot machines

Post by sutty »

I managed to improve on my first effort at the clock spring. First versus second below. Still not perfect, but happy enough with it now, and I'm out of wire, so it will now have to do. At least I have a spare, albeit not as good, if anything goes wrong.

Did better with the ends, but still had a hiccup halfway along, where a slight bend in the wire shows up. Oh well, good enough, as I said. For the ends, I used the mandrel, inside the spring, to retain and prevent further coil ends from being able to be bent.

First-vs-Seconda.jpg

Cheers for all the earlier advice contained in this thread.
sutty
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Sega Mad Money Restoration

Post by sutty »

Post moved & merged - Site Admin.

I learned something tonight. I decided to read up about springs, made from music wire, and I discovered that it is useful to give your spring a heat soak after forming, to remove stresses from the metal. Apparently, this can improve performance, longevity and prevent distortion of the spring, where high use is expected. The temperature recommended was 450F, which I could do in the oven. It said heat to 450F for half an hour, and then cool very slowly, over the course of about two hours.

I thought I'd give it a go, expecting no visible change in the spring at all, considering that's only about 230 C. To me that barely seems warm, when thinking in terms of steel. I'm surprised it could even tell it was in the oven, but clearly it could, because when I got it out, after the prescribed very slow cooling, it had changed colour to a kind of nice brown colour.

I decided I would try to read further, and I discovered that this is expected, but the thread I found that made that comment did not add an explanation. Go figure, carbon steel music wire turns brown as a result of barely warming it. Maybe some of you know this, or can tell me more, but I was very surprised.

Not that I'm bothered, I should now have a nice stress free spring, that will last longer, it's just a nice brown colour now. :HaHa: I was going to post a picture of it, but with my phone camera it just looks shiny silver still.
tallstory
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Re: Sourcing & making springs for slot machines

Post by tallstory »

The low temperature stress relief removes the stresses caused by cold working (winding the spring) but it isn't hot enough to anneal the piano wire, which would remove the springiness altogether. I don't bother with this step usually and I don't remember it ever turning brown. Perhaps it was the dripping from the Sunday roast.
sutty
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Re: Sourcing & making springs for slot machines

Post by sutty »

lol, yes, that could have been it, quality. :lol:

I hadn't previously bothered about it, on the few that I'd done, because I didn't even know about it, but I thought why not try it, if it relieves the induced stress, which is what I'd recently read, and you've just confirmed. I simply didn't expect it to turn brown, because I didn't read that until after the event. It's otherwise perfect, so why it's turned brown, if that's not your experience, I couldn't say, but it has. It certainly hasn't been overheated, because the oven won't even get hot enough to do that, and in any case it's still just as springy, if not a little more.

The ends didn't go brown, but one of those will be chrome plated, and the other stainless steel. I've managed to get a photo that shows it reasonably well, by putting it on a white background. Prior, it looked like the springs I showed a few posts back, or the same colour as the ends.

Brown.jpg

sutty
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Re: Sourcing & making springs for slot machines

Post by sutty »

sutty wrote: Tue Feb 08, 2022 9:12 pm Managed another one today with which I am happy. Used the gloved hand tension and guide technique, shown above, which worked well, thank you tallstory. Tried a test wind of the much thicker 1.22mm wire, and it was not possible to hold it by hand. It was way too stiff for me, so I guess I must be too weak. Still coming up with a plan for redoing the clock spring, just for fun. I'm happy enough with what I produced, but if I can do better, now I have bought some more 1.22mm wire, then I'll do so.

Newa.jpg

New spring in background, and old in foreground. Old is 4.03mm OD, and new is 4.07mm OD, from 0.014" wire, in both cases. As you can see the old one was rusty, over stretched, and broken, so I'm pretty sure I needed a new one. :!?!: :D
Quoting myself here, because my earlier photograph was edited, by someone, happens a lot here, perhaps to save space, etc, and it no longer includes the new spring, making the post make no sense at all.

New vs Old.JPG
New vs Old.JPG (20.53 KiB) Viewed 1668 times

pennymachines
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Re: Sourcing & making springs for slot machines

Post by pennymachines »

sutty wrote: Sun May 08, 2022 9:40 pm Quoting myself here, because my earlier photograph was edited, by someone...
Mea culpa. Image showing new and old spring restored to post. Apologies. :woops:
sutty
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Re: Sourcing & making springs for slot machines

Post by sutty »

!THUMBS!

Thanks.
alliofinn
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Re: Sourcing & making springs for slot machines

Post by alliofinn »

I need some of these. Any ideas?
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pennymachines
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Re: Sourcing & making springs for slot machines

Post by pennymachines »

To describe the spring you're after, you need the diameter of the spring wire (measured with a gauge). To complicate matters, different metals have different tensile properties: https://www.thespringstore.com/standard ... sizes.html

If you don't fancy making your own (using the guidance above) there are a couple of suppliers listed in Archive/Services:
https://www.coilspringsdirect.com/
https://www.flexosprings.com/

If you have a sample, it might be easiest to visit a supplier, spring-in-hand, for a good match.
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