Board Thread:General Nerf discussion/@comment-27306930-20171027011626/@comment-24743922-20171030010256

FLATtheFISH wrote: Pedroh1999 wrote: Are you guys really talking about metallurgy without calling me? :^( Darn it, I'm sorry Pedroh. What is your take on mod? Doing a homemade temper on the spring does work, but not as best as it could if done with proper tools. There are a lot of tables and charts you have to follow to ensure the procedure has been done correctly. Elliott and Mojo are right by using the retemper procedure only to readapt the lenght of the spring by small amounts, because if you do it with longer springs, homemade tools aren't able to reach the necessary temperature for the procedure to work. And a half-tempered spring is worse than any other spring, because the elastic energy is not transmitted equally through the metallic structure, which can result in spring break(no pun intended) and consequently blaster break. Me, personally, as a mechanical technician which has been trained to do this sort of thing, would first quench the spring for it to retain the new shape, then temper it to reduce internal tensions, then do stress relieving to increase how much the spring can retain energy.

In a oven, you're just heating the metal a little, and that's why it retains the shape. But temper is something different, and the spring has been already tempered before even leaving the factory. I have my doubts of how benefitial this procedure is for the spring when done in such a improvised way. Like, it works, I just did it to test the procedure, but... I can feel some brittleness macroscopically, imagine microscopically? Again, it works and can be done, but don't go putting 40kg plunger springs on a homemade heat treated catch spring, ok? :^P