New Sources for Springs

[Brewcrafter]

There are many threads here devoted to missing dog springs, and also a few that detail how to wind homemade springs, or tear apart a disposable lighter to get at the spring holding the flint striker.  Well I discovered another source.  Over the weekend my son's car had a failure and wouldn't/couldn't start.  Isolated it down to the ignition lock cylinder being seized.  I was able to get the steering column disassembled and the cylinder removed and was perusing my options for replacements on the World Wide Electronic Information Resource when one of my friends dropped by.  He picked up the broken part and in a few seconds had it exploded across my workbench in a collection of tiny pieces of metal and springs.  "Aha! Here's your problem!" Holding up a tiny piece of shiny metal that had some wear marks on it.  Now, in general, I don't like to have parts left over when I reassemble stuff but moments later he had the lock cylinder reassembled (minus several components) and functioning.  Downside is you can probably start the car now with a popsicle stick  .  At any rate, he showed me what to purchase (a cylinder rebuild kit, considerble savings over the other options I was looking at) and when I had it he came by and reconstructed the cylinder so that the original keys to the car would work.  He brought with him a Plano 7500 box and popped it open and had what must have been literally thousands of tiny springs in various sizes.  "Standard locksmith stuff, I probably have 5 other boxes."  Funny thing is afterwards we were discussing it and I told him no way I could have done what he did without at least 5 attempts and failures, which he found funny since he has seen fishing reel components scattered across my workbench many times and was equally confused looking at what I was doing.  I guess it's all a matter of perspective and experience!  Also, when he reassemble the lock he asked me for any oil and I handed him the reliable TSI321 that is always on the workbench.  Received a lecture from him about two of the biggest issues he would run across in his locksmithing days: "Graphite powder is like putting sand in your lock, WD40 is pretty useless as well."  Hmmm, I'm pretty sure there are forum posts about that as well!  Anyhow, next time that elusive dog spring launches itself into orbit, or when working on a reel that hasn't been manufactured in many decades and parts are not available, make friends with your local professional locksmith and they may have the solution! - john

[happyhooker]

Good to know.

Frank

[Donnyboat]

Yes a regular squirt with TSI or inox MX6 is always beneficial.cheers Don.

[Donnyboat]

Knot sure if you can buy TSI, in a pressure can, anyone, that has info on that, cheers Don.

[boon]

Giant lock nerd here. Be careful about the spring material as many of them are materials that may cause dissimilar metal corrosion. Steel springs are relatively common but I don't know if they're stainless very often.

Your local locksmith will be able to help you out here, they'll probably have a box of random lock internals.

As for lubricating locks... many of them come from the factory either completely without lubrication (or a very light coat of oil purely for storage) or lubricated with graphite powder. Graphite works great until it doesn't. The biggest problem you have is when someone has a graphite lubed lock and goes and shoots a bunch of oil inside it, because it promptly forms a horrible black goop with the remaining graphite powder, which results in a lock that works great for about a week then gets progressively worse and worse. If you want to change to oiling a lock, you really need to flush all of the graphite out of it, and there's no great way to tell if the lock was originally full of graphite. Long story short, unless you know what you're doing I'd be extremely wary of routinely shooting oil up in a lock, especially trying to do "preventative maintenance" on a new lock that is otherwise working well.

[Midway Tommy]

I use the same lubrication philosophy on key locks, hinges, window slides, drawer slides, closet door tracks, etc. that I use on spinning reel bail springs, which is ArmorAll. It seems to last much longer & does a better job than just about any other type of lubrication & resists dirt collection. Every new construction house I built, for over forty years, got a once over with it before the new homeowners moved in. It made everything work great, even if the painters got lacquer over spray on the tracks, glides &/or rollers.