Owen Springs

Manufacturing Process

	Our sales team identify the customer's specific requirements and select the appropriate specification sheet, of which over 4,000 are kept in our technical library. This is issued to production as a route card, specification requirement and contains a unique job reference number enabling total traceability throughout the entire working life of the spring.
	Spring steel to BS970 is sheared to length and processed through the required manufacturing operations, including eye forming, nibbing, drilling, punching, taper rolling and wrapping. The leaves are then passed to heat treatment (1,000-1 ,050°C), shaped and oil quenched to give a quenching temperature no less than 890°C, after draining they are tempered at 500-560°C to give a Brinell hardness reading of 356-440 HBS 10/3000 to BS240 before final adjustment to give correct shape and camber.
	On the final assembly line the required components are added, i.e. bushes, clips, centre bolts etc, to complete the spring which is again checked against the specification sheet. The spring is treated with a protective coating and part number, customer name, and most importantly the job reference is stencilled on. In accordance with our strict quality procedures springs undergo final inspection, are scragged and load tested.
	Locomotive springs follow a similar production route but are manufactured in accordance with BR166 and BR148.