Question about making bogotas

[salvage]

I was looking at the sticky post with the instructions for making bogotas, and in the materials list, it says that you need a small heat source. As there was no mention of this in the subsequent directions, I was wondering what it was used for.

If it was used for bending the tension wrench/twisting the tension wrench and pick, how was this handled, since I know that heat can cause weakness/brittleness/general problems with picks if done incorrectly?

Thanks

[Kaotik]

salvage,

Read all the posts in that thread...the answer you are looking for is on page 7.

Don't mean to sound rude but the answer is there.

As far as heat creating a problem for metal, yes it can without proper knowledge of it. It sound like you may need to do some reading/research on Tempering and Annealing, you can find this information in this site with use of the search function.

[scampdog]

you dont need to use any heat when making these picks,as there are no tight or sudden bends. just make sure when you twist the handle section, that your grips,vice or,whatever you are using, are not to close together.

[raimundo]

Sounds like scamps done it before there is no heating necessary, I don't know why its mentioned, if it is, but if you like, after bending and twisting the metal, you can set the metal memory, by heating over a bic lighter for about 20 -30 seconds, till the metal turns blue, but its not necessary.

[Earned Entry]

What do you mean "set the metal memory"?

It's been a while since I've dealt with any sort of metallurgy.

[Krypos]

wait. a lighter can do this stuff? i always wondered if i could use a lighter for the metal stuf instead of a metal torch or something.

[Kaotik]

It depends on what you want to do to the metal. A small heat source such as a lighter, butane hand torch (pencil torch) or acetalene torch on low can all be used to loosen up the molecules in the metal to help bend, form to the desired shape.

With an acetalene torch on low you would want the same results similar to smoking for impressioning, no oxygen and all gas turned low till it starts to emit black smoke from the torch tip. Not to much smoke though, it could get messy. It rises and then falls looking like black paratroopers.

Yes, all the bends are done by a cold bending method and using a lighter to set the twists will allow the twist to stay in the position you bent them to. However, over twisting them cold and slowly letting it relax will compensate for using a lighter.

[salvage]

Hey Kaotic, sorry, I thought I had looked at all the posts in that thread. oops

Anyways, yeah I was just wondering b/c I actually have made my own set of bogotas, and I have looked a little into tempering/annealing (although as for bluing, I've never had a heat source that could heat my steel that much). This was just kind of a curiousity kind of thing, b/c I was looking over the diagrams again to compare my bogota vs. raimundos to see if I did ok, and I just noticed that he listed a "small heating source" in his instructions and wondered about it.

Hope this clears up some confusion.

[salvage]

actually, ignore that comment about the bluing, please and thank you

[Krypos]

too late. i read it.

[raimundo]

The 'Making Bogotas" PDF was put toghether by a guy in holland using a paper on which I had written a brief description of my method, The line drawings, (not very good) actually come from that paper, al the rest is from his understanding of that paper, its accurate, but If I had mentioned to him anything about heating the metal, it would have been as I stated, for use after bending.
the steel is thin and heats quickly, if you try to use heat in bending, you will clamp a plier on after its heated, to make the bend, but the plier is a huge heatsink to the thin metal and quickly takes the heat off near where the plier is, and over heating will often ruin the metal, (if you have some bristles you are not going to use, you can heat one end cherry red with a propane torch or a crak ligher, then quench it, it should be very hard and brittle. you can also try bending and other things with this hot metal, you will find that it makes the temper of the metal very bad, and the metal very brittle. if you do any experiment that gives you something you like, try to repeat it for the same results, here again, metal gets tricky.)

[Kaotik]

salvage,

You may have seen them already but incase you didn't, I put some close up pictures of my Bagota's and Sabana's made from the stainless wiper inserts. The links are in one of my posts on page 6 of that same thread.

They are the same dimensions as raimundo's but the peak tips are approx. a .5 of a mm shorter. Doesn't seem to make that much of a difference compared to raimundo's, I tried them both in comparison on several locks and they retain the same result.

Please post some pics of your Bagota's, maybe a few others and myself would like to see how they came out.

[salvage]

Wow Kaotik, those look really good. I'll probably try to post pics at some point, but I don't have access to a camera atm. Also, mine aren't nearly as smoothed down as most peoples, as I only have a file, a dremel, and woodworking sandpaper. At some point, I will definitely need to get some of the stuff for metal so that I can round off my picks.

As for mine, when I look at them, I think I made the peaks a little too high, so that the effect is that the peaks look closer together, but the peak distance is actually about 6mm. Given that these are the second set of picks I've made though (not counting paper clips), I don't feel too bad about them. The first set I made as picks with regular handles, but they were made of the stamped kind of hanging file folder hook and were bent by the end of the first day of using them. That might just be a little heavy-handedness by me though, as I'm not entirely sure what it would take to bend a commercial pick; I've never actually bought any picks. However, the bogota and hook that I made out of the flat hanging file folder hook have stood up quite well to my abuse.

Interestingly, I still prefer to use hook generally, as I am somewhat off and on with the bogota. I've looked at some of the relevant posts regarding the jiggling technique you need with the bogotas, but I'm still kind of spotty in my success. When they do work, though, they work like a charm. Perhaps my next set will use raimundo's original half-diamond too, as I've never used that type of pick. I wonder how it will compare to how I like the hook.

PS: Krypos: HOW COULD YOU READ THAT!!!!!?????? ARG!!!!!!! haha, j/k

[Kaotik]

salvage,

Thanks, I put a bit of work into those to get them just right, and it paid off in the end.

For the hanging file folder pick and Bagota, as long as they hold up to the stress then they should be alright. It doesn't take much to lift a Wafer or Pin so light to moderate pressure is fine IMO.

As for the technique for using Bagota's, it was best described by raimundo as he says use them as if you had drank to much coffee by jiggling them up, down, in and out at the same time.