source for replacement coil spring for old drill press?

I had an old Champion I restored once. Didn't even try on the spiral spring; rather, I made a nosepiece with two ears that slipped over the end of the quill and I fixed two extension springs to that. It looked a little kludgey, but worked great, ancient machine is still going strong 20 years later, probably into its second hundred years or close to it.

GWE

Need more info like type and size. Did you try Century Spring, or Mcmaster?

Rich, I believe the OP is *missing* the entire spring - therefore, no ends to re-form. Ken.

I don't have suppliers for you, but there are various types of equipment that use springs of this sort. The first ones that occur to me are lawn mower/trimmer rope starters, or chainsaws. Maybe a repair shop could supply a used spring that you could modify.

If I didn't have some suitable spring material in a junkbox, I'd begin to look at other machines that use that type of spring.

This site may provide useful > I have a pretty big old drill press that is missing the coil return spring.

That's exactly the situation. No spring, no housing, nothing at all. So far I'm beginning to think that return springs grew on trees that are extinct now.

It looks like either a torsion spring or a flat spring is what I'm looking for. I''m still holding out on the idea that some company somewhere is making the replacement spring assemblies complete but I will fab the thing from scratch if I have to.

Type and brand would be "BigOl'Honkin". There's no maker mark of any kind or serial number/ID plate anywhere on it. It's currently wired for 3 phase with a 1HP motor with a reverse but that looks to be a changeout from the original by a previous owner.

I posted some pics to the dropbox, here's the links:

Thanks again for any help or tips you can offer.

People have commented that Harbor Freight usually comes up with repair parts being available at a reasonable price. Take a look at the parts blowout here for their Model 38119

5 speed press:

It looks like the quill spring is item 28A (crappy pdf, hard to read) part number 0804009 on page 15. Maybe a phone call would get you something close enough to work with your press.

Get ahold of the returnspring material in a snowmobile engine pull starter. Try manufacturers supply. They have all that stuff.

Another idea you could try would be to mount some sort of drum to your stub that was maybe 3 inches in diameter. Wind some cord or cable around this go up to a small pulley and then back to yet another pulley at the rear of the press. Hang some weight on the end of the cord, value to be determined by what works well.

It wouldn't be pretty, but it should work better than not having a return spring...

Mcmaster?[/quote:1362035005]

Same problem. Return spring repaired too many times, now too short. Spring 3/8" wide x apprx. 36" long coiled. Any info would be welcomed. Rockwell/Delta revised part number 402043205002, old number

402043205001, not available.

snipped-for-privacy@spam.invalid (Rockwell) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.supernews.com:

Would a screen door spring be too short/weak to do the job?

[ ... ]

O.K. You left out the thickness. From MSC (pages 1745-1746 in the Big Book), you can get coils of flat spring stock. The thickest sold in 3/8" width is 0.062", and that is available in two coil lengths,

85 feet for the normal coil, or 12 feet for the mini coil.

The thinnest available in 3/8" width is 0.005", and the mini coil is 39 feet there. (They are sold by weight, hence the weird lengths.)

If the thickness is not enough, perhaps you can double up two lengths to form your spring -- and maybe even get more life out of it.

Good Luck, DoN.

One more reason not to toss that fifty year old Lawn Boy in the back corner of the shed! Gerry :-)} London, Canada