Low temperature heat treatment 260 to 290 c of music wire after coiling relieves stresses within the wire due to cold work performed in coiling.
Music wire spring heat treatment.
I d use it as it came.
Tough wire can be bent and cut using the proper tools.
Spring making is a very old and well established art.
A cold drawn general purpose spring wire material stainless steel is heat corrosion resistant and magnetic in spring temper.
It also returns the material to the strength levels prior to the forming operation and can actually increase the strength to levels greater than originally supplied.
Alloy steels with 10 percent or more chromium provide better corrosion resistance than alloy or plain steels.
Music wire high carbon steel is heat treated after being drawn and before being wound into a spring.
Definition of heat treating springs.
Springs commonly use precipitation and austenitic hardening.
The music wire used by modelers to make landing gear and cabin struts is medium carbon steel heat treated to spring temper or about 45 on the rockwell c scale of hardness rc45.
One way to soften steel music wire is to heat it which makes it easy to bend and form.
On this scale rc20 is soft rc45 is tough and rc60 is hard 1 tough wire can be bent and cut using the proper tools and techniques but sometimes it s just too difficult to work with.
Stress relieving is the most common heat treating operation.
Following winding there s a mild re treatment to remove stresses in the wire produced by the coiling process.
It relieves the stresses that occur as a result of the spring forming operation.
Acxess spring s heat treating chart.
This treatment increases both the elastic limit of wire in the spring and its resistance to deformation in application.