Playing with springs/needing answers

[dyna-ti]

I picked up a titanium spring for a Manitou Sherman firefly, on ebay for a few quid
I bought it thinking i [or someone here]can use it elsewhere
For instance-
Can i use any spring in any fork if the dimensions are roughly the same ?
The spring is 325mm[13"] long and about 25mm[1"] in diameter
I even thought i could take it to the grinder and shorten it [or half it ]
and use it in my judy tt [if it fits]

Anyone got any ideas on this?
I mean a spring is a spring :?



If it isnt any use ,I can always add it to my ever growing swop pile where it might be useful to someone.

Boing boing

 

[dyna-ti]

anybody?

 

[FairfaxPat]

Springs may look the same, yet have different SPRING RATES. This refers to how much pressure it takes to compress that spring an inch. A way to check this is to put a scale under it and put the two of them in a drill press. As you wind the spring down with the press, note how many pounds of pressure it takes to compress the spring one inch, and you will have the Spring Rate. There is , however another kind of spring called a Progressively Wound spring and it's springwire gets thicker at the bottom and causes a Rising Rate in the spring. this means that it might take 90 pounds pressure to compress the first inch, but as it gets into compressing the thicker bits of springwire at the bottom the figure rises to higher values (maybe 120 lb. for the second inch, etc.) for each additional inch compressed.

 

[dyna-ti]

The seller described it as soft
He said its the standard spring that comes with the fork ,he changed for a medium
What i really wish to know is ,as its ti, it's lighter than the springs in my judy tt
If i can jimmy in in somehow[if it is indeed compatible]i hope to save weight
The spring in the judy is pretty soft and bouncy anyway
Im reasonably clued up on springs ,i had to do a lot of research when i had springs made for my amp blt fork,as they arent readily available over here
cheers though