new pick-making material?

[grim]

well, i think i found something for making picks that i have yet to see mentioned in here.

fish tape.

you know that whippy spool of metal that electricians and phone guys use to pull wires through conduit? well, it seems to make functional picks. i found an old piece of fish tape in a desk drawer at work that was about 4-ish inches (10cm) long. i thought, "hmm... let's see if THIS works."

i'll be dipped if it didn't.

i made a super-simple rake type pick with a triangular file by tapering the front of the fish tape and knocking a few notches in the tape itself at odd intervals and angles so i wound up with something that looked like this:

Code: Select all

                        _______________________________________
   /\        ,--,      /                                       )
  /  \__/\_/      \___/                                       /
 /___________________________________________________________(


well, i wanted to try it out, so i thought, "if i made the rake, why not make the tension wrench too?

so i grabbed a big copper box-staple out of today's UPS shipment and straightened it out. then i bent it sideways into an "L" shape. why did i bend i sideways? i figured if this cockeyed scheme worked, i could tuck these into my wallet for one of those "just in case" situations.

i grabbed a couple of locks off of the shelf and i just about dropped my teeth when the darned things were actually opened by my ugly rake. well, the rake and wrench are now in my wallet, but i just thought i'd pass along my (limited) experience with using fish tape as pick materials.

[What]

well, yes fish tape is a good material.

although i believe it has been mentioned before.

another material i use is pipe snake(used for cleaning drains).

[LockNewbie21]

Since were on the topic.. can anybody give me a link to a site i can buy the spring steal snake, all i find is spring wire, I here the stuff is great and would save me trips to the junk yard.


Andy

[maxxed]

Fish tape does work, I found that it did require a lot of thinning. I have some stainless steel fish tape that I made some bogotta stye picks from wich was a lot of work. I did make a very powerfull plug spinner with it.

[maxxed]

Since were on the topic.. can anybody give me a link to a site i can buy the spring steal snake, all i find is spring wire, I here the stuff is great and would save me trips to the junk yard.


Andy

I don't know about any sites but I see it in many of the retail stores in the tool department. If there any "B" rated tool stores you can find 50" lenghts for less than $10.00

[digital_blue]

Yup. Fish tape has been mentioned a number of times, however, it's worth bringing up again. There's always new members here, and I'm sure there's many that hadn't read about that before.

db

[Squelchtone]

Yup. Fish tape has been mentioned a number of times, however, it's worth bringing up again. There's always new members here, and I'm sure there's many that hadn't read about that before.

db

Being a 'phone guy' as the OP stated, I need to add that I commonly refer to this material as a "snake". I don't call it fish tape, (I guess people call it different things depending on who originally taught them.)

I think unreeling this metal into a wall to pull wires inside the wall is more like a slithering snake than a fish (or fishing)... I'm not sure where they came up with fish tape, but I have never liked that term, and I do use the stuff every day.

So for those of you learning, it is also common to call this an electrician's snake, althought I have not seen anyone on this forum call it that. The most common manufaturers in the US are Greenlee (green plastic container) and Ideal (blue plastic container), but I'm sure there are other companies who make the stuff.



Personally, having used this stuff every day for 8 years, it is too fat to bother grinding down to useful picks. But then again I use the 200 foot style. My 25 foot little baby snake is in fact made of very flat 1/2 inch wide, 1/16 thick stainless steel, the 200 foot is 1/4 wide and 1/8 thick (this is the one I think it too thick to bother making into picks.

IMHO
Squelchtone

[Wolfman]

so i grabbed a big copper box-staple out of today's UPS shipment and straightened it out. then i bent it sideways into an "L" shape.

One of thoes huge copper box-staples! GENIOUS!

I never thought of that. I gotta go find one of thoes! Thanx

[grim]

so i grabbed a big copper box-staple out of today's UPS shipment and straightened it out. then i bent it sideways into an "L" shape.

One of thoes huge copper box-staples! GENIOUS!

I never thought of that. I gotta go find one of thoes! Thanx

genius? no. inspired? most assuredly. thanks for your kind words though.

[grim]

Being a 'phone guy' as the OP stated, I need to add that I commonly refer to this material as a "snake". I don't call it fish tape, (I guess people call it different things depending on who originally taught them.)

i think there might be some regionalism involved too. since i moved to PA, i've heard a couple of people refer to them as snakes, but prior to moving east, i'd never heard it called anything but "fish tape" before. i s'pose it's like okra. down south, some people still call it "foo-foo".

Personally, having used this stuff every day for 8 years, it is too fat to bother grinding down to useful picks.

grin down? this stuff is thin spring steel and there was no thinning necessary. though i have seen the fatter stuff when i was working for a telco in MT. now granted, it wasn't as thin as my store-boughts, but it was thin enough to work.

[maxxed]

The fish tape (snake)I have purchased from electrical distributers is too thick to enter a keyway, but the tape I purchased from pilumbing distributers is thinner and more suitable for picks.