Towards the end of 2000 the specialist welding skills of TWI staff were put to thetest when they received a call from Copylines on behalf of Lee Springs, Europe's largest stock spring company.
Lee Springs wanted to make a display model, called Golden Hand Shake, to exhibit at the Manufacturing Week exhibition at the NEC. This was quite an engineering challenge as over 100 springs of various sizes and sections were used. The problem was that none of the metalsculptors approached appeared to have the welding technology for produce work of this complexity.
Colin Eileens, Programme Manager, Welding Training, and Dave Poulter, Senior Welding Instructor, undertook to produce the hand.
Initially a model was mechanically constructed with the aid of Blu-Tack®. After the configuration was approved, Colin elected to TIG weld the austenitic stainless steel base but silver solder the springs so that he couldexercise complete control over the heat required to join the different sections of springs together. This latter part of the process was absolutely critical as too much heat would have destroyed the smaller spring sections. Over aperiod of several days, the hand was built spring by spring. Once finished, it was given an electroplated gold finish.
The finished article will feature in Lee Springs promotional work for some time to come.
If you have a similar requirement, would like to know more about specialised welding procedures or TWI's extensive welder training programme/courses, contact Colin Eileens e-mail: colin.eileens@twi.co.uk or Dave Poulter e-mail: dave.poulter@twi.co.uk .
