Today's task for this novice and not very competent SolidWorks user is to draw a coil spring and I haven't the first idea how to do it.

It doesn't even have to be that accurate a coil spring as its going on a pattern for a scale models to represent the springs of the real thing and will only be in sort of half relief. Once I have drawn the coil spring I envisage a placing a cylinder in the middle of the spring that cuts the wire of the spring in half [so there is no undercut] and then cut the lot in half so it's a half a spring on a flat surface.

I think I can figure out the cylinder and cuts but I have no idea how to do the spirals of the coil spring.

Grateful for any help on that

If you wanted to be more comprehensive in the answer it's just occurred to me whilst writing this that I am going to need to produce the half spring on a flat background with a solid core many times in different patterns but with the height, width and spring wire diameter varied so if there is an clever way to set the first one up so it can in future easily be amended then I would like to here it.

Thanks in anticipation

Paul Martin