bike spoke picks and nail tension wrenches

[Shrub]

Working spokes in that way does work harden them and thus make them brittle possably but i think they actually hold up quite well on the brittle stakes,

Its not my choice of material but when i first got into making picks i went to the local scrap yard with some bolt croppers, there was a pile of psh bikes and i simply snipped all the spokes off on most of them, ive still got them somewhere as i never used them, they make reasonable lever lock tools but other than that not up to much, a lot of them are alloy and no use, the others are still a bit bendy but i guess work hardening them makes this better for cylinder picks which use much less force than lever picks,

[illusion]

I still have the first ever set of picks I owned, and incidently made in my bedroom. They were made out of bike spokes, and didn't turn out too bad, in fact I do like them - i'm kinda clingy to inanimate objects that have sentimental meaning.

They make okay picks, but my favourite use, as Shrub said, is for lever picks.

If you can, try and get steel spokes, since they are okeay.

[cL4y]

when i was getting off the bus from school,i noticed a old junk clean-out,

1 in front of every house.

i went into my house,emptied my bag,and went out again.(screw homework)
on the way,i dound an old silver BBQ tray.Small,about 60 cm by 60 cm and the peices of metal,were about the exact same size of the spokes on my bike and looked good for making picks and wrenches.

I never got around to making a pick,but i did make a,alriiiiiiight tension wrench,but i don't use it.

So in all,i see the spokes as making good picks,but i stick with hacksaw blades...but if i was gonna make a set with a hobby knife,id follow what you did.

i also found heeps of key blanks in a jar

[unbreakable]

nice Cl4y, we have those junk days around here to. I go out and reposess as much junk as I can.

I was doing this well I was suppossed to be studying for exams

I had a whole stereo system set up, BIG wood speakers and all, but I kinda fried it .

I've been stereo-less since then. I've gotten other useful junk too- noteabley wiper blades, and some scrap metal. Also, I got a few locks, which I had to rip out of doors. A simple old one that used a skeleton key. It only has one lever, and is easy to bypass, but its still kinda cool.

[DiamondHead.exe]

I would imagine that hammering a bendy material like bike spokes would condense the matter into a smaller space making it less brittle and a lot harder. I wouldn't think it would be brittle since all your doing is compacting the metal and not filing it down and making it delicate?

[cL4y]

well you know what they say,

One mans trash is another mans treasure,junki makes the world go round,etc.

I always look on dumps,they are everywhere,theres no harm in lookin at em'

Unless there is a syringe or something

[Earned Entry]

I aquired a bike wheel today (dumpster out back of my workplace had one in it for some reason O.o oh well, mine now haha) and I have about 19 spokes right now and there is probably another half dozen still on the rim that I couldn't get off (will have at it with a cutter disc on the dremel tommorow muahaha >:- )

Was wondering how you made your hook pick. Did you shape the end, then wail it flat, or did you flatten it first and then shape it. I'd think bending an end, mushing it down, and then filing it to size would be the easiest way.

[cL4y]

these look like very good,and useful picks, im thinking of doing a whole project on making a set,for my new main pickset.I always thought,"ohh what a makeshift pick,bike spokes..pffft"

[Earned Entry]

Made a tensioner and a hook out of two of the spokes today. I could NOT, for the life of me, just beat those spokes flat while cold, so i got 'em hot and did it. I think I ended up hardening them in the process, but they seem solid and not brittle in the least. I made the hook oversized because I plan on doing the same for the handles as kevlar did, using a drafting pencile or maybe one of the pin vices that was linked to before, and I wanted to have extra material so I could cut it to size. For idea of size I slapped 'em on a standard sized piece of paper (8.5" x 11") because I couldn't find a ruler hehe.

Here's the pics:





They look rougher than they feel. I did all the actual shaping using my dremel. After I got them shaped up, I took a buffing wheel and some buffing compound and went over them several times. They feel silky smooth hehe. I will hit them with some 2k sandpaper once I buy some, but for now, I think they are most adequate.

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Decided to test their "flex" out before I posted, and here's what I got:

During "flexing":


(Blacked out a messy living room hehehehe)

After :