Making of a hand spring for Webley RIC commertial

[Tokarev]

Have this beautiful Webley & Son RIC commercial model in 44 S&W American, that only indexed the cylinder when held perfectly vertical for lack of the hand spring. Finally got around to making the replacement spring.
I had pictures of the hand with a spring from an earlier model RIC to copy but this model uses a different design.
The spring of the earlier model was held with a tiny square headed screw, where in this one it is simply inserted into the hand.
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Made it from a lawnmower starter spring: annealed, formed, quenched and tempered.
It may be a bit too strong, I'll see if it needs thinning.

Next is making a trigger return spring. The existing spring made of piano string is too weak.

[leebuilder]

Nice work. I like lawn mower recoil springs too, most SKS stripper clips are a fine spring steel too and quite thin. I recycle all sorts of springs and spring steel. Those old carberator return springs are handy too. I bought brownells flat and round spring packs too for those square peg type of jobs.
I usually make two or more, one will always have flaws. Temper on the stove or hot plate and Robert is your fathers brother.
Be well.
lol, almost forgot, under wires from bras are handy too.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Do you know if the original had the end bent into cylinder like that, or was it a transverse cylinder cut from the solid? Either should work reliably, and are far better than the straight spring crimped into a straight slot, which we often see in the cheapest Belgian copies.

It is easy enough to harden a spring, but difficult to temper it evenly. The best way for the amateur is to cover it with engine oil in a shallow vessel, and ignite it with a torch. When the oil has burned away, you have a correctly tempered but filthy spring. Oven cleaner should remove the greasy carbon.

[bruce drake]

Great tip! I may soon be building a sear spring for a Trapdoor Springfield Lock because a local shop wants $25 for the little thing!


Do you know if the original had the end bent into cylinder like that, or was it a transverse cylinder cut from the solid? Either should work reliably, and are far better than the straight spring crimped into a straight slot, which we often see in the cheapest Belgian copies.

It is easy enough to harden a spring, but difficult to temper it evenly. The best way for the amateur is to cover it with engine oil in a shallow vessel, and ignite it with a torch. When the oil has burned away, you have a correctly tempered but filthy spring. Oven cleaner should remove the greasy carbon.

[LAGS]

I use metal Tynes from a Steel Leaf Rake to make many flat springs.
I have a collection of Top Break revolvers , that almost all of the mainsprings are made from the Rake Metal, annealed, formed and treated the way that it was explained in the burning oil.
I also float some small springs on Molten lead to heat treat them.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

A liquid gets hotter after it has melted and it is kept over the heat source. With pure lead you would only get satisfactory spring before this has happened, when it is no more than a fraction above its melting point of 327 degrees centigrade (indicated by little lead icebergs still floating in it, if the heating is slow, since lead has very low conductivity for a metal), and the spring still has a definitely bluish colour. I would prefer a slightly lower temperature for a spring that won't take a set.

A lead-tin alloy might work well, but another method was to use a melted mixture of mineral salts sold for the purpose. Even saltpeter isn't bad, at 334 centigrade, and has the advantage that you can see through it. Hot sand can also be used. I found his gadget really does work as claimed, and is useful for numerous other things.

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[Tokarev]

This is not the original hand without a matching number, but I do not know if the original spring had a fish-hook bent tip or it was ground from a thicker bar.

I have to temper this steel at 540 degrees (280C) no less, otherwise it comes out too brittle. I do it on a hotplate pre-heated and stabilized at required temperature, controlling with a thermocouple.

With the small items like springs the most difficult part is heating to the proper quenching temperature. Last night I finally made the working trigger return spring after trying several different shapes that did not work, and ended up with a soft tip that touches the trigger notch. It still works.

I held it in tweezers right above water, heating with a torch, but the moment I started dropping, the tip was too cold for quenching and remained soft in the end. Need to rig something up that would keep a column of hot air all the way to the surface of water.

What I am not 100% sure of is whether I am heating long enough for quenching. I only heat for about 10 seconds.

[leebuilder]

I try to heat a piece of flat bar with the small item on it. Let them both get red/orange together then push the item into the quench. Works most of the time, if i had oxy/actelyne it would be easier. I use 80w90 for quenching.
be safe

[Ballistics in Scotland]

This is not the original hand without a matching number, but I do not know if the original spring had a fish-hook bent tip or it was ground from a thicker bar.

I have to temper this steel at 540 degrees (280C) no less, otherwise it comes out too brittle. I do it on a hotplate pre-heated and stabilized at required temperature, controlling with a thermocouple.

With the small items like springs the most difficult part is heating to the proper quenching temperature. Last night I finally made the working trigger return spring after trying several different shapes that did not work, and ended up with a soft tip that touches the trigger notch. It still works.

I held it in tweezers right above water, heating with a torch, but the moment I started dropping, the tip was too cold for quenching and remained soft in the end. Need to rig something up that would keep a column of hot air all the way to the surface of water.

What I am not 100% sure of is whether I am heating long enough for quenching. I only heat for about 10 seconds.


You are right that 280 centigrade is likely to be too brittle, but I think around 300 is ideal. In large sections it is a good idea to have the metal stay hot for a while, to make sure it isn't cooler on the inside. But I don't think this is likely for something as thin as a hand spring, and hardly very crucial for a revolver mainspring either. It just has to be red all over, but not the excessively light orange red which can harm spring steel.

I wouldn't worry about the time taken to move the spring a couple of inches from flame to water. It is still pretty fast cooling, and if it wasn't fast enough, all heavy springs would have soft middles. You could use a piece of vermiculite firebrick sheet, such as jewelers use for soldering on, and put it over the top of a container with water much closer to the top than that. Just heat the spring up, use the nozzle to stop it moving, and whip the sheet out from under.

This is another type of spring people may find on English revolvers, in this case my cap and ball Tranter for which I made a new sear. It is very easy to break a spring of this type in trying to remove it. For it looks as if its rectangular butt end is simply crimped in, but in fact a cylindrical extension extends through a round hole to the top of the hand, and is slightly bent to make it lodge in the straight hole.


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[Tokarev]

This particular steel works fine when tempered at 280C.
But I tried 250 and 240 and both pieces fractured right away.

[Tedly]

nice work