Examples of Tokai Spring achievements

Tokai Spring Industries possesses unique manufacturing technology based on many years of experience of delivering products to customers in the culture and arts industry. “We want to replace a spring on a device designed a long time ago, but we don’t have the drawings…” “A primitive material was used for a spring, but it’s no longer available…”
We have solved such problems with our high-quality springs containing a generous amount of our know-how.

Problems and challenges

The traditional Japanese craft “Karakuri doll” is equipped with a shutter. Its opening and closing mechanism has been made of a material called “baleen” which functioned as a spring in the past. When the mechanism broke down, we planned to fix it by replacing it with modern spring.

Solution

First, in order to realize the spring characteristics required for the spring of the opening and closing mechanism, we measured and quantified the load characteristics of the conventional baleen material. In addition, the customer required that the spring mechanism should be able to take a large amount of deflection, withstand long-term use, and was easy to maintain. Based on these requirements, we conducted spring design simulations and studied materials and spring types. As a result, we selected carbon steel as the material and plate spring as the spring type.

Results

The designed plate spring was manufactured and used in the opening and closing mechanism of a real Karakuri doll.
As a result of the operational verification, it was confirmed that the spring functioned as conventional baleen, and the sensory characteristics were reproduced without any sense of discomfort. The spring helped to preserve a valuable traditional Japanese product.