Spring is Sprung?

  

Since we're talking about Spring....

  Why does Modern Fence Technologies use visible springs on self closing hinges?  There are a lot of reasons, but they all boil down to one – we want them to work.  When your customer asks you for a self closing gate, is it ever okay for the gate to not close under its own power?  What happens when the gate one day stops closing?

  When we looked into making a self closing hinge, we looked at spring materials and types and sizes and found that any stainless steel spring that was small enough to fit inside the sleeve of our T-Rod would break after a very low number of cycles.  Springs break.  They can only bend a certain number of cycles.  It doesn't matter if the number of cycles is 200 or 2000, a broken spring means that with an enclosed spring, you have to replace the whole hinge.  It also means the gate won't close itself, which leaves you unprotected.

  Springs break down over time because of “metal fatigue”, which happens when tiny cracks form in metals as they flex. As the number of flex cycles goes up, so does the number of these cracks, until they grow together to form big cracks, which cause the spring to fail. A bigger spring will allow many more cycles than a smaller one without failing.

  We could have made the whole hinge and spring bigger, to fit the size of spring that would last an acceptable number of cycles, but chose not to.  It would cost too much to use that much stainless steel in a hinge, and a bigger hinge would look odd. Another problem was, we were stumped trying to figure out what the “acceptable number of cycles” should be. It makes more sense to use a spring that fits outside the barrel of the T-Rod that can be changed if it breaks. 

  Visible springs allow us to have a larger spring, able to handle more flex cycles.  We have never had one break.  They also allow us to use bushings in the T-rod to reduce wear and prevent metal to metal contact.  Closing force adjustment is done without tools, by adding or removing springs, and if one ever does break, the user can see the problem and fix it, rather than trusting a hinge that looks okay, but won't close.

  Modern Fence Technologies self-closing hinges with springs work.  That's why we make them that way.  If you are looking for a self closing hinge with a more subtle appearance, check out our Gravity Hinge!