Chopper 1 spring repair notes
The local hardware store had
a spring that was close to the original Chopper 1
spring for 30 cents.
A short stub of 12 gauge wire
seems to be enough to anchor the spring once I glued it in place with a
product called Liquid Welder.
I'll let it dry overnight and
then give it a test drive to see if this repair can hold up under heavy
chopping.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Mark, for future reference, if you want to glue metal (I'm guessing cast iron from the look on the pictures?) de-grease it first with e.g. acetone, roughen it up and remove corrosion with some sandpaper and de-grease again. Then glue it.
BTW, if the 12-gauge wire isn't stiff enough to resist the bending forces applied by the spring, there is no way that glue is going to restrain it.
If you just want to keep the wire from falling out, a small drop of superglue (cyanoacrylate) would probably suffice.
Thanks for the feedback Rolland.
This spring just barely puts any force on the 12 gauge stub and is mainly used to return the iron finger back to the original position.
I agree that extra prep work on a surface is critical if you want a good bond, but this only needed to hold the pin in place and the surface was mostly clean.