Material

Hoby shop or music shop (guitar string)

I'll second what Tom said. Music wire ("piano wire") makes good springs, and you won't have to fool around with heat-treating. Besides music stores, you can buy lengths of it in many diameters at model-airplane hobby shops. I buy mine at a Pearl Art Center. It's used for various kinds of hobby building.

-- Ed Huntress

Or, do what I did when I needed a custom spring: I contacted a local (at the time) spring manufacturing shop. It was dinky little shop in an industrial area of San Diego and the guy really spent some time getting the spring I needed just right for me. Didn't cost me much either as I recall.

Two or three gages of music wire will make 90% of the springs you'll ever need. Find a Mechanical engineering book or machinist's handbook that has the formulas. I make quick & dirty mandrels out af any round bar stock. You have to experiment with the springback diameter, but a little calculation with give you the design for most anything. Bugs

As well as the hobby shops, etc. places like Travers Tool or KBC have packages of it. A package is far more than you need but it's pretty cheap in most sizes and you'll have it for next time.

As to making springs, I have used two methods: BFBI (Brute Force and Bloody Ignorance) and, for more critical jobs,

Mcmaster.com is a good for this type of stuf if you cannot find it locally. Very fast shipping. We order stuff at work by about 3pm and it arrives the next day, standard shipping (no next day air surcharge).

StaticsJason