Bodge Job but it works

[Chequered Flag Racing]

What would we do without the ball point pen spring and vaseline

Last night the pair of them brought back to life a ceiling light switch in my mothers bungalow at 20:05. The original spring had broken a couple of coils off and when I tried to stretch it it snapped as it had gone brittle. So out came the ball point pens to donate a spring. Found one and lubed the mechanism with vaseline and hey presto, all is working fine . She has a new switch which will be installed sooner rather than later.

Don't think the springs are big enough for RC cars though

Post about how you've used of vaseline only if you don't want it deleting

Did have a video but due to lack of skills on those pesky mobile phone thingys I forgot to save it

What other uses have you put the little spring to?

[mikerobinson83]

i used a spring from a ball point pen on the servo of my 1/8th nitro after i lost one on a race day and without it the carb was sticking,kept me running for the rest of the day and come to think of it it is still on there.

[Garry]

Originally Posted by Chequered Flag Racing

Don't think the springs are big enough for RC cars though

Well, you say that......

My Tamiya CC01 trail truck had them instead of main springs, one cut down inside under the piston too, thin oil so loads of articulation.

[Chequered Flag Racing]

Originally Posted by Garry

Well, you say that......

My Tamiya CC01 trail truck had them instead of main springs, one cut down inside under the piston too, thin oil so loads of articulation.

I stand corrected.

I should have said as the main spring as we know them.

[colmo]

It's common in crawlers to have a pen spring on the shock shaft inside the shock body to give a dual-rate spring effect.

[Cruise]

On various occasions I used "negative" springs in my offroad cars, especially on smooth low grip surfaces to get an ultra smooth shock action.

When I mislaid my set of Losis I used the springs out of Edding paint markers

Cruise