Military Surplus Cutlery = Good Picks?

[Romstar]

Shrub, are you out of your tree?

Think of the material you are working with here. This is high speed carbon steel. A hacksaw blade. You can't just anneal the silly thing, and then expect to harden and re-temper it easily.

We use it because its cheap, readily available, and for the most part has an "acceptable" temper. As you must well know, that temper isn't all that good, since you can crack a hacksaw blade apart.

Now, considering the carbon content in these things, its hard as he*l to re-temper them properly.

If he doesn't end up with a floppy mess, it will most likely be brittle as anything. In either case, neither of them are particularly suitable to picking.

Oh, and lets not forget bi-metal blades. Pick a few of these up by accident, and you will be wondering why the devil you can't make a decent pick.

As for the file, for the love of god, go buy another one. While I am sure there has to be someone here who HAS used a 10 inch file to make picks, I can tell you from experience that isn't what you want to be using.

If you are intent on simply filing the pick you will cut faster if you anneal the steel as Shrub suggested, but then you are going to have all kinds of problems hardening and tempering it again. Flame hardening and tempering is something akin to a black art. It takes quite a while to get it right, and you will waste a lot of material practicing. It can be fun, but be aware of the cost involved.

Since you said you have a bench grinder, go buy a brand new "soft" wheel for it. Make sure its a quality wheel, any good supply shop should be able to help you. I know it sounds strange, but we use soft wheels for hard steels, and hard wheels for soft steels. Kinda the opposite of what you might expect.

No, once you have your new wheel, start working on your pick shapes with the grinder, but finish them off with files. Good 5 inch fine files in smooth or second cut are appropriate. A good set of jewlers files are excellent.

Consider the size of the tools you are using against the size of the tools you are creating. It may take some time, but if you go slowly, and take the time to consider each step as you make your tools, you will minimize mistakes and in the end be much happier with the outcome out your efforts.

Romstar

[Shrub]

No im not out of my tree and as you state its perfectly possable but practice for some people may be needed i understand,
I often think of things i find easy to do should be easy for others and forget that they wont have my experiance or skill/s but to harden and temper a blade to make a suitable pick isnt that difficult if you make sure you catch the tempreture correctly,

You could use your 10" file and simply hold your blade ina vice tight and rip at it to rough it out then finish it off with a small smooth one but grinding is the only real way to go i agree,

I was merely answering a question if the asker cant do it correectly it isnt my concern as experiance shows me that people do what they want anyway and i only gave a solution,

But yes i agree things arent as easy as i often make out they are, i guess ive just got sick of saying the same thing over and over again and the answers are becoming shorter and more matter of factly, it will be nice to have someone else around willing to answer these sorts of questions in the correct way,

[Romstar]

No im not out of my tree and as you state its perfectly possable but practice for some people may be needed i understand,
I often think of things i find easy to do should be easy for others and forget that they wont have my experiance or skill/s but to harden and temper a blade to make a suitable pick isnt that difficult if you make sure you catch the tempreture correctly,

Come on man, I know you are't out of your tree. I was messing with you. Its a play on your name and your sig logo.

I know where you were going, and like you I often forget the same things. I have actually had to make an effort at times to keep things a little more basic because I am dealing with hobbiests who may or may not have the experience to do certain things.

As for the advice, well annealing isn't something that I would normally recomend for a hacksaw blade as they are just too much of a pain to bring back to temper. Most of the cheap ones are garbage steel, and the expensive ones tend to take care of themselves.

If you can find them, get hold of some Vermount American or Starrett molly steel hacksaw blades. Make some picks out of them, and then try to break them. They are a wholely different material than regular carbon steel blade, and lots of fun to work with I might add.

Anyway, take care
Romstar

[clockwork orange]

those knives may not make good lock picks they look as if they are not the right material, so why dont you sharpen them then use them as throwing knives, surely that would be more useful then a bad set of picks any day?

[Shrub]

Rom, i did realise you wernt having a go but man i totally missed the joke, thats well funny now you say it lol

Ive got a load of blunt starret bandsaw blades but simply never bother making hand picks and prefer to play with lever locks but yes the differant qualities makes for a hard thing to judge and tell someone,

I have to admit ive not even heard of Vermount American brand before now, it could be difficult to get them here but i shall try

[SteveOXIII]

When I was in High School I had a metals class and one of our projects was to make a cold chisel, after we had shaped it we had to heat it up and 'rub' it in a material, then heat it up again before we quenched it, the material we coated it in was supposed to add a carbon coating to the edge making it strong enough to chisel through steel.

Has anyone heard of this? If so what is the substance that you would coat a metal with to add carbon to it's composition?

Sorry for the vagueness, but I thought it might help if it was something we could locate to use in the heating process to control the temper, I know that the Japanese swordsmiths used ceramic to change the temper of the blade which was called the hammon and made the edge brittle like carbon steel while leaving the back a spring steel, if we could do something with modern materials that was cheap we could begin the quest for the ultimate lockpick!

[Romstar]

The technique you used in class was called "carborizing", its also know as case hardening. Basically you get a very hard surface with a softer interiour.

This technique has been used often for tools, and is decent, but not often used any longer.

I used to use a different technique with forging iron, as iron has a more fiborous structure than steel, it takes "packing" well, and you can get a good edge. Steel on the other hand does not "pack" as does iron, and requires other methods.

The Japanese method of sword tempering depends a great deal on composition of the iron and steel used in its construction. As you study the technique, you will soon discover that many katanas are not just folded, but layered. A strip of steel is folded over and over in several strips of iron, or lower quality steel. The result after many folds is that the steel is exposed at the edge, and the iron is in the core.

The hamon is the result of the clay composition used to cover the blade during hardening and tempering. Because the welding and hardening temperatures of iron and steel are different this covering is required. The decorative wavy edge is a byproduct.

Some katanas on the other hand are a solid composite steel that is high in silicon. Only one master smith perfected this technique, and his secret was lost with his death. Some other smiths using silica steel were able to make similar blades, but were not able to artificially introduce silicon into their blades.

Another technique for Japanese katanas was to infuse steel nugets into the iron while it was being folded. This is a long and difficult proceedure, and one that I have only ever attempted once. I don't think my arms ever recovered from that as the number of folds required is much higher.

One day I may rebuild a forge and make another blade. I haven't done that for a very long time. What I can tell you is that there is something much more fulfilling about forging a blade rather than cutting something close to a blade and then grinding it to shape. Too many knife makers today are grinder artists, and not true blade smiths.

In any case, there are a vast number of metal hardening and tempering techniques, and each of them has their place. For our purposes with lock picks, you only need to have a basic grasp of the technique, and teh rest is practice and experience.

Good luck.
Romstar