Need Help with welding Stainless spring

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Ok I am trying to weld a Stainless Steel spring into a Stainless cup the spring is 4 inchs tall 1 inch OD wire size is 0.160 problem accuring is after I weld the spring it loses its springability and is week above the weld and opens up I used Tig first time then stick I am only spot welding 2 spots across from each other and I let the weld cool on its own should I quinch it or something else
Reply:You can't do it.  If you get any spring hot enough to weld it will lose the characteristics that make it a spring.
Reply:Can you take a peice of S/S stock and bend the edges up and weld it to the cup?Then stretch the spring around the clip by putting a loop in the end long enough to stretch the spring.Should be able to do that.
Reply:here is a photo of what I am trying to do Attached Images
Reply:the spring will fail every time you weld it.  Doesn't matter what welding process you use.  The heat of welding destroys the properties of the spring steel.  You might be able to weld it and re-heat treat it again after the welding is done.  You'll probably get some significant distortion.  Contact the company that made the spring and see if they'll tell you how they heat treated it originally.  If it's cold drawn to form the spring and create its mechanical properties then you're up the river without a paddle.  Maybe it's time to break out the JB weld???Benson's Mobile Welding - Dayton, OH metro area - AWS Certified Welding Inspector
Reply:Could it be done with silver solder?Have we all gone mad?
Reply:The spring should only loose it's properties in the heat affected zone. I've welded carbon springs onto molds with little problem. The small HAZ looses it's springability and gets flattened the first time pressure is put on it, but they take that into account when they chose the springs.Having the proper filler is important. I'm not sure what to use on stainless steel springs, but your general stainless rods (308,309,316) wont work. You'll have to call a welding rod manufacturer and ask what they recomend for joining stainless spring steel to regular stainless.
Reply:Drill a hole in the side of the cup the diameter of the wire, stick a drill bit or something the same diameter and depress and twist the hole to the side horizontally, now try to pull the spring through,keep the spring at a 90 deg to the cup when doing this, looks like they had it that way originally.
Reply:It's a spring!that means it's really not gonna be carrying a lot of force without permanently deforming the spring. so:why even weld it in the first place?  JB weld and call it a day. if the surfaces are all properly cleaned it will break long after the spring gets destroyed.The first thing I do when welding is try to make my job easier by not welding at all.
Reply:I don't care about what you're trying to get your spring to do.  You cannot weld a spring and have it be a spring afterwards.
Reply:How much of the spring is losing it's spring? How much spring does it need to have? Some of the spring is going to have to be sacrificed if you want to weld it because the HAZ is going to mess up it's properties. I just noticed too that your spring has a tight coil. I would try to space the coils out some how so that the heat has a harder time moving through the spring, thus reducing the HAZ, and presserving the properties of more of the spring.Some more details about what you're doing would help to figure out wether the project is even do-able in the first place. Sometimes it just can't be done. You may have to figure out a mechanical means of joining the parts.
Reply:I had a similar job of connecting two rods with a spring.  I cut "threads" on each rod end and "screwed" the spring on each rod end.  Count the "threads per inch" of the spring and measure the spring diameter.  Set lathe for the spring pitch and grind from tool just slightly smaller than the spring wire diameter.  When cutting "threads" on rod ends pitch diameter should be a bit larger than spring ID to allow spring to "screw" tightly onto the rod ends (I used spring ID + spring wire diameter + .010)  This worked for my project.
Reply:Originally Posted by Grimm1The spring should only loose it's properties in the heat affected zone. I've welded carbon springs onto molds with little problem. The small HAZ looses it's springability and gets flattened the first time pressure is put on it, but they take that into account when they chose the springs.Having the proper filler is important. I'm not sure what to use on stainless steel springs, but your general stainless rods (308,309,316) wont work. You'll have to call a welding rod manufacturer and ask what they recomend for joining stainless spring steel to regular stainless.
Reply:It's not only a spring, it's stainless too.  Any heat that gets it red hot is going to change its properties too.  I am pretty sure that stainless that gets heated may become brittle.Rene