Making "stainless steel pins"

[dilly]

I just got a new job and I think I will have a steady supply of springs that would otherwise go to waste. I have been thinking of salvaging them in order to cut them up eventually and making stainless steel pins. I am pretty cheap and am kind of always on the lookout for ways to do it myself, most of you would understand I'm sure.

Anyway I don't yet have a wet tumbler and can't test it out on my own, but I wonder if any of you guys who know more about the process than I think it will work. The ends of the springs are thin enough to fit through flash holes, by the way.

My main concerns are these:
The wire cutters pinching the end to being too thick and get them through the flash holes.

The curvature of the springs will cause them to stick annoyingly in the flash holes.

The springs may not be as corrosion resistant as I had hoped and rust. Are there any good predictors of how well they resist rust? I would hate to spend months collecting them and hours cutting them up only to have them rust. Or would that not matter because they would have the rust rubbed off on the tumbling action?

So what do you think, any thoughts?

[JRLesan]

Take a couple of springs, set them on a wet towel outdoors and wait a week or so. If they don't rust after being exposed to moisture and temperature change, you're probably good to go. By the way, do you know how many spring ends would be in 5#'s worth? Might be good to make some preliminary calculations (weigh one and multiply) before you got out the wire cutters...

[geargnasher]

If you use a citric acid solution per the SS pin tumbling method, it will passivate the SS as well as the brass, one of the neat attributes of using citric acid. It will actually rust PROOF the pins and springs.

Gear

[dilly]

If you use a citric acid solution per the SS pin tumbling method, it will passivate the SS as well as the brass, one of the neat attributes of using citric acid. It will actually rust PROOF the pins and springs.

Gear

Interesting; I figured that even if it did rust, the abrasive action of the pins would rub off the rust, a little bit like steel wool.

Anyway here is a picture of one of the springs, next to a 22lr round and a 308 Win casing.

63481

I was planning to clip the entire length of the spring, each of which is about 30 grains. That makes roughly 1200 springs for 5 lbs.

It sounds like a lot but to be fair what percentage of this hobby is comprised of simple, repetitious motions? I don't intend to devote my entire focus to spring clipping!

[Moonman]

Dilly,

1200 pins wouldn't make dent in the number of pins in 5 pounds of the Real McCoy S.S. Media.

The pins are about .041/.042 in diameter and .252/.255 long.

They are MAGNETIC STAINLESS and they DO NOT RUST.

Good Luck with your endeavor, but the real thing only costs $40/$45.

MOONMAN

[VHoward]

He said 1200 springs. Not 1200 individual pins. From what I read of his posts, he gets the springs for free. So he only has to wait until he has enough to tumble with. Free springs and only his time spent cutting the springs into many pins.

[shooter2]

Dilly,

1200 pins wouldn't make dent in the number of pins in 5 pounds of the Real McCoy S.S. Media.

The pins are about .041/.042 in diameter and .252/.255 long.

They are MAGNETIC STAINLESS and they DO NOT RUST.

Good Luck with your endeavor, but the real thing only costs $40/$45.

MOONMAN

The man is right. Just part With $45 and buy them.

[dudits]

i would agree, with spending. i understand cheap, but imagine if you cut 1200 springs just to find out they were a thousandth to big and would not work properly?

however keep saving them as they scrap yard will pay ya well

[Agent1187]

My only wonder is - would the sharp cut edges wreak havoc on the brass in some way?
For as short as they are, I couldn't see the curvature of the original spring causing too much difficulty. How close is the diameter to the flash hole? If it's really close, I could see issues with the cut ends getting caught in there.
You could always send me a bunch, and I'll cut 'em and tell you how it goes. ;-)

[dbosman]

My concern would be repetitive motion issues.
I used to do hand work using pliers like tools. My new (22.5 years ago) wife got us bicycling. The vibration from the handle bars send my hands into numbness. It was the repetitive squeezing that started it though.

[dilly]

I went ahead cut a spring. The spring is a little tougher than I expected, but I cut it up okay. The cut pieces fit through flash holes as well.

So far I have about twenty springs. I'm starting to think a more practical idea is to buy a bag of steel shot and mix several hundred springs worth of these up for the flash holes. As far as I have heard (and you may know differently) the steel shot works just as well except the flash holes, and it's quite a bit cheaper than the specialty product. Supplementally using my homemade rods may be the ticket.

While cutting I saw a paper clip and clipped that up in there too. Just thought I'd give it a try.

[zuke]

If you decide to go ahead and try it, keep us posted.
I for one am interested in how they would work.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Are you really preparred to make the literally millions of cuts it will take to generate these pins? Whereas I haven't taken the time to count how many pins are in a lb of material, I would bet that there are tens of thousands in one lb.

That means you have to make tens of thousands of cuts with your pliers! believe me you will be done with it before you get 500 done.

To give you an idea of how this stuff is actually made, they are made on wire cutting and bending machines. These are little mechanical machines that are designed to make simple wire parts like clips, springs, and pins.

There will usually be a bunch of them running in one room and they are knocking out product at a rate of 1-2 parts per second, and they run 24 hours a day.

The ones making these SS pins are probably stacked up 50 deep IE; 50 machines making the same thing. The house is probably getting "cents per thousand parts!"

IF you look at the numbers it becomes overwhelming very quickly. One machine making 2 parts per second = 120/min or 7200/ hour, or 172,800/day. This is probably 5 lbs of material!

Going at this with a pair of Dikes you'll need to get up early in the morning and skip lunch!

How much is your time worth?

Randy

[hemiallen]

Free is good, most of the time. I suspect this isn't one of those times....

[Cord]

I bought my SS pins from Pellets LLC a while ago.
http://www.pelletsllc.com/

They understand about pin tumbling, and if you call
and state what you are interested in doing, they will
transfer you to a person who will take your order.

I paid $25 plus $5 SFRB shipping for
5lbs of magnetic SS pins just the right size.
Don't know what the current price is....

Cheaper by far than doing it myself;
I would rather be casting, loading, or shooting.
.