| The
Martin Door spring has a life span nearly four times greater than
most of its competitors. The Martin spring is the result of a tireless
effort on the part of David O. Martin to find the right solution
for his doors.
In the 1960's Dave Martin began searching for a method of coating
oil-tempered springs. Oil-tempered springs had been the staple
of the industry for many years and were reliable, but were also
dirty. Garage door installers were infamous for their black,
dirty hands and the resulting fingerprints on newly installed
doors. Dave wanted a better, cleaner option.
He contacted a major spring wire manufacturer with his ideas
and soon introduced the first painted torsion springs. These
springs were cleaned with solvents before applying good quality
black paint.
This new painted spring was clean to handle but had one major
drawback. Over a short period of time as the torsion spring wound
and unwound, the rubbing of the coils ground the paint, which
sprinkled down onto the face of the garage door.
|
In the late 70's Dave began again searching for
a better coating process. He came across an old engineering book
printed by U.S. Steel Corporation, which explained in detail
the problems and possible solutions to making a quality galvanized
spring wire. The book noted three major problems in the process:
• Dipping the wire in hot zinc anneals the wire, shifting the
temperature of the wire to unpredictable levels.
• Zinc leaves a
lumpy surface (commonly seen in galvanized fencing wire).
• The
resulting wire could not handle the stress levels of other
types of spring wire.
During this period, the U.S. government was also encouraging
all Americans to begin using the metric system, so Dave chose
to continue his experiments using metric spring wire.
|
His goal was to produce a spring wire that was clean to the
touch, while maintaining similar characteristics to oil-tempered
wire. He contacted a major domestic spring wire manufacturer
and began working on the problem. The result was a colossal failure.
The annealing, smoothness and stress problems were too much to
overcome.
True to his gritty Scottish heritage he didn't give up. He went
overseas and this time found a spring wire manufacturer who took
a different approach, experimenting with different wire grades,
applying various zinc processes and modifying the engineering
formulas.
After two years of trial and error, Dave was able to manufacture
the first galvanized garage door tension spring. This product
was introduced in 1985. Martin's Zinc-Tempered Torsion Springs
are trademarked. |
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