A couple of years ago I made my first picks out of a hack saw blades. It did the trick, was fairly decent, but a little too small... my own fault because I was cheap and tried to squeeze too many picks out of each blade.
Later I tried electro-etching, again out of hacksaw blades. Works fairly well, but if my picks were too elaborate (L-rake) it was difficult to not get too much under-cutting. My main problem with electro-etching, and I may be way off on this, is that you can't do it safely with stainless steel. Apparently you create toxic chromium salts by using electro etching on stainless.
I had some .040 stainless steel sheeting I tried grinding down. My alloy wasn't any good because even at .040, and even after quenching from blue, the pick was still way too soft. Gave that up...
I tried wiper inserts. Some are great, but most I got my hands on, were kind of thin. They make great short hooks or small half-diamonds, but I have a hard time finding wide ones for rakes and deep reach picks.
And now, steak knives. Wow, will never buy a pick again (well..... maybe not never....). The dollar store sells these cheap ones for 1.25$ for 4. I grind a little bit of the handle, mostly the top near the blade, and can push the blade right out. Theses are obviously not full-tang at more or less 30¢ each.
I cut out with an x-acto my templates I got off of LP101, the open pick project (love the templates, thank you Drifty Flintlock). I had printed them on thicker paper so they would hold their shape a little more than regular paper. Then used a sharpie to color in my picks shape. Next: Grinder, water, grinder, water, grinder, water... ahhh forget it... strap the grinder to a bench (out doors) and strap a nearby hose at the perfect angle so that it constantly cools (wear a rain coat and boots!).
Then simply thin them down to about 0.023 on a belt sander (don't over heat) and hand-file them to desired shape. Result: Awesome picks. Really stiff and resistant. Oh, and of course, I progressively sanded down to 2000 grit.
Handle? Epoxy brass bars, grinder shaped, with my hose/grinder set-up. If any one else wants to attempt this, by very careful in your set-up so as to not send water into your grinder.
I should probably put a couple of rivets in the handle to make sure that the brass bars stay put.
(The weird looking "pick" sticking out from a huge black handle was eventually transformed into a nice L-rake. That was before I tried taking the knife out of the handle.)
