piano wire beding

[SAL]

i,m making some wire picks for morice locks, i normally bend the piano wire square to make the handle but would like to make it round, i made a jig to try this but the wire did,nt keep its shape (round) does the wire need to be heated before bending?

[bonez]

i bend mine into triangles

[SAL]

good for you boned

[Mark A]

SAL

Yes it does help to heat it.

Mark

[SAL]

whats the best ting to heat it with, a gas torch from b&q?

[Shrub]

Heat it and you may as well not bother useing it,

You need to over bend it so it springs back to the shape you want, if youve made a jig it needs to be smaller than the actual size you want,

Cut a slot in the side of a piece of round steel bar on one end and put the end of the wire in it, then bend it around as tight as you can and then remove by sliding off the end, simply cut the little bit off the end that you had put in the slot to leave a circle,

You may be able to get away with a little heat if its thick wire and the picking end is sat in a bucket of water but i wouldnt advice it,

[SAL]

thanks a lot for that shrub, much appreciated

[Shrub]

No worries,

Im not saying Mark is wrong at all but rather if your not careful you end up with a handle that will simply twist off one day or not make it to begin with,

Personally i wouldnt do that anyway i would always put a separate handle on whether it be a childs wooden wheel, a radiator key, a golf ball, a proper knurled alloy thumbturn or one of the handles such places like Maplins sell etc

If you have to solder it or heat to form make sure the picking end is kept cold and that maybe you quench after heating then gently warm it up again very briefly and quench again to take the brittleness back off it,

[Mark A]

Shrub is right, if you overheat and cool too quickly the wire will become brittle and liable to break.

I only ever use a lighter to gently heat before bending and then allow to cool naturally, but if you can do it without heat then this is the better option, if it will stay put.

mark

[Romstar]

I just love the names of some of the stuff we use. I have always been fascinated with how a 4.5 mm steel rod gets called "music" wire.
I vaguely remember the reason,but I still consider it funny.

At any rate, for a lot of my tools, I HAVE to heat the wire to get the proper bends, and that always results in me having to harden and re-temper the wire.

It is quite possibly one of the most important skills you can develop in making tools.

Avoiding it is a good idea if you can, but it isn't as hard as you might think, and there are a lot of resources on the net to help you along.

Romstar

[Shrub]

In this case its more along the lines of piano wire which comes from the wire that is used in pianos, being between 1mm and 2.5mm thick for the lever locks around here its not as bad as bending 4.5mm silver steel or such like to a 90' bend