Subject: Spring Steel

From: [email-masked] (Frank Bates)
Date: 25 Nov 1994 04:01:12 GMT

A friend is building a pulse jet, and needs to obtain some spring steel,
.0047 inch thick. (Seems an odd size to me, maybe it has a metric equiv)?
He will need about 3 or 4 square inches of it.
Any ideas on where to obtain this, or maybe a better place to ask?

Thanks
Frank Bates
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Ralph Snel)
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 09:23:43 GMT

> Any ideas on where to obtain this, or maybe a better place to ask?

I had the same problem when I built my pulse jet, but eventually I found
just what I wanted in a place where they repaired old clocks. They had
properly hardened and tempered sheets of different thickness, normally
used to replace worn-out parts in old clocks.
Buy twice as much as you will think you need, as you will burn up
a few of the valves.
The original V1 engines had valves, that only survived for a few seconds
or so, so later designs left them out all the way. Seemed to work.

I never had the jet running longer than a second or so, problems with
the fuel supply. By the time I had changed that, people started complaining
about the noise and the gasoline vapours.

Maybe I should dig the thing up and give it another try again...

Let us know how the thing turned out!

Ralph
[email-masked]

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From: dms27 (Derek)
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 1994 16:59:46 -0700

> Any ideas on where to obtain this, or maybe a better place to ask?

I used .004" feeler stock.  It comes in strips of 12" and of varying
widths.  Other thicknesses are of course available.  A local machine shop
may be able to get you a few strip with thier next order.  It was stainless
and seemed to make an excellent seal when I gave it the inhale/exhale test.
 I haven't tried to run it yet.  What do you plan to do with it?
------------------------------------------------
Derek Streeter, 
[email-masked]