small spring for Olympus 35

i need a replacement spring for a olympus 35 (the early rangefinder model)

its a 'pull' spring, about 1cm long. I have the original but its all streched out.

what would be a good source for these? hard drive? cheap camera?

A pen?

Also check gun supply websites... Some guns have tiny springs

heespharm said:

A pen?

Click to expand...

No, that's a compression spring. He's looking for a tension spring, with the coils touching together and when stretched, will try to pull back to resting. Contact Fixcinator, I sent him a large box of camera parts, including springs, and other repair parts.

Expansion spring: https://www.centuryspring.com/products/extension.php also available in some hardware stores and possibly model train/plane/hobby stores.
If yours is stretched then compress it to measure its original length. A longer spring can be cut down and the required end formed.

Good luck with finding an off-the-shelf spring; Several parameters need to all be correct:
- rest length
- diameter; at least an upper limit to fit in available space
- most important: stiffness; that depends sensitively on the wire diameter (all other things equal); like the cube of the diameter IIRC, so that diam_x2 means stiffness_x8.

Most likely need to roll your own; see:
http://www.deansphotographica.com/machining/projects/springs/springs.html
This guy is a perfectionist, I get away skipping some of the steps. And I don't have a lathe, I use a hand drill fastened on the table, leaving one hand to turn the crank, and the other to guide the wire.