Thank you to everyone, especially Kelly for the great information. This forum is s helpful.

For those wishing to make your own, and if you have access to a reputable heat treating firm. You can use SAE 1095 (Annealed), or alternatively 1080 or 1075. Roll the leaf with the curve running in the same direction as the rolling direction of the plate or strip. Have the heat treater harden and temper the leaf to 42 - 48 Rockwell C. Some distortion may result, so a trial run may be needed to determine if you need to over or under roll your leafs, for this reason it probably only makes sense to make them yourself if you have a number to make, or you happen to have some appropriate steel in the boneyard. Some minor distortion can be tweaked out even after hardening. My old 1919 Machinerys Handbook only says to use plain carbon steel containing around 1% carbon for spring leafs.

Have fun: Pat

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A check around the Baltimore area reveals that the place where Railroad Passenger Cars, Inc. and a private loco owner used to go for spring rehabilitation--Fallsway Spring--is now gone, with a ritzy e-commerce company now inhabiting the formerly gritty industrial building just off the Inner Harbor tourist area. I have not been able to locate a "worthy" successor.

It appears that the "art" of leaf spring management has become just that, a "lost art" right up there with carburetor adjustment and seemingly half of what we rail preservation geeks do these days.

No one has mentioned them yet, so I will. Dendoff Spring in Surrey, British Columbia. The made the full set of springs for Southern 2-8-0 #401. Did a nice job too, and at good prices, though at this point I don't remember specifics, and would have to go back through the records to find what we paid for them.

We had slotted leaves as well on most of ours, and they were well made, not torched out or some other abomination.

We've had no trouble with their springs so far, and would go back to Dendoff for future projects.

http://www.dendoff.com/suspension-compo ... verailcar/

Kent

For anyone wondering what the difference is between the various steels mentioned-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_steel

HK Porter published a spring catalog, and I have attached a link to the three relevant pages on leaf springs. Not quite as straightforward as the Baldwin charts, but might work better for spring sizes not listed by Baldwin.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/33523379@ ... 2303374234

You should be able to download the full size images. Its hard to read with all that fine print.

Try Dendoff Spring http://www.dendoff.com/ . They made new leaf and coil springs for our streetcars here in Fort Collins. They were reasonably priced and gave us fantastic service.