If you use appropriate change gears, you can do it with a carriage
mounted wire tensioning gizmo on a piece of plain rod. Something
where the wire is clamped under a nylon washer works pretty well,
there's some other ideas here:
Roy
--- In 7x12minilathe@..., Willem van Biljon <willem@...>
wrote:
Hi all,
I am sure this is old news to the experienced hands out there, but
thought I'd share a tip I "discovered" today.
I needed a small fairly weak compression spring of about 7 to 10mm
in
diameter, about 10mm long. Couldn't find one, and decided to make
it.
After a bit of experimentation, I discovered that using an M6 bolt
in
the chuck provides an ideal guide for the piano wire I used to make
the
spring. Wound a perfect spring that was about 8mm in diameter
after
release, with even spacing between turns. I subsequently
experimented
with other diameters, and all worked well. Could even do a tension
spring by matching the thread to the wire diameter (in this case
M4).
The thread also gives a great way of starting the winding by
providing a
place to jam the wire between the chuck jaw and the bolt.
Willem
