I had read about people using wedges made from old broken leaf springs from a car or truck. They had said they got the broken leaf springs for free from an auto shop. That seemed pretty easy. I decided to try a couple wrecking yards though. The first couple I called said they couldn’t help me. But then I called my favorite place which is a longer drive, and they said sure, come on down. So I drove down on Saturday morning, and they told me to go out and look in the one corner. I looked around expecting a pile of broken leaf springs. No such luck. I looked around and found a broken leaf spring on a car. All I had to do was remove a single bolt. My largest socket was just a little too small. I used a crecent wrench and got the nut off, but couldn’t get the bolt off. I work on it for a bit, but finally gave up. I did find a rusty piece of leaf spring nearby that was about 20 inches long. I kept it. I looked around and found another broken leaf spring held only by a single bolt. I put a little effort to see if I could get this off, but no. Then I stumbled over a leaf spring that had already been removed, and head to the office. The guy looked at what I had, and said go ahead and take em. Way cool! I shoved them in my car and drove home.
The tricky part was how to cut them. Spring steel is hard! I didn’t want to my sawing away with a hack saw. I went to Harbor Freight. I had thought about buying some 4 inch metal cutting disks and a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder. The disks were only a few bucks, and the angle grinder under $20 I think. But then I saw some 7 inch metal cutting disks. I ended up buying the 7 inch disks and was going to try them on my circular saw at home. That worked out great. It took a little while to cut through the spring steel, but not nearly as long as trying to cut them with a hack saw. Cut the leaf spring into pieces about 8 or 10 inches long.
I used my heavy duty Dewalt bench grinder to clean up the sharp edges of the cuts. Then I proceded to sharpen one end to a wedge point. Again, it took a while due to the hardness of the spring steel. Overall, they were very cheap with the only costs being $10 for a 10 pack of metal cutting disks (I only used one of them), and some gas to go to the salvage yard. What a deal. I may try to get another leaf spring or two. We’ll see how these work.
