how long till your homemade picks were good

[ghostman]

I jsut bought a grinder the other day to make some picks and my first "hook" pick came out terrible. The was no lift curve at the end and it was all uneven and such, the nex pick i tried was a diamond, at fist it was starting to come out good. then when it came to te business end, i had no idea how much to grind off and how big to make the diamond. will i get better at making them and anytips on making them. hopefully ill try to buy a commericial set of them.

[NIC]

TEMPLATES

[ghostman]

i had one glued on and i also triedputting it on and marker in the surrounding so id know to just grind the colored areas. i did jstu find out though at my dads work they have alserjet printer so im gonna mke him print out a bunch of tumplater adn hopefully that will help a bunch

[Shrub]

If you are struggleing you can go around the edge of your template with a pin punch and hammer, then all you do is grind to the dots,

Alternitively you can scribe around the template with a scriber,

Stick with it, if youve never done any metal work before you just need some practice,

Click on my www button and have a look there then look for my guide on making picks, theres also pyro's vid knocking around on youtube etc,

If you struggle on the size of your picks you can alsways compare them against the key and see if its a simular size,

[ghostman]

i only had a padlock which i found walking down the street (no i didnt steal it) so i dont haev the key . i have the sizes rigth for the temps, and i haev been using the vids. the best method so far would be the coloring around the template but maybe next time ill leave the template glued to the hacksaw so i def know when to stop that side, but as i said maybe the laserjet transfer wil help me out. this is the first time every using a grinder so im jstu getting use to it. is it better to use the coarse whel or finer wheel .it seems the coarse wheels it almost bending my blade

[Shrub]

It sounds like you really need to click on my www button and read the guide on making picks,

I leave the paper glued to the blade,

You do not press the blade into the wheel you let the wheel cut it,

Make sure you quench every second,

You can rough out on the coarse wheel and then finish on the finer one,

[ghostman]

yes ive read your www about 5 times before hadn watched pyros thing and also another one i fuond on youtube. Pyros ddnt really help becuase he did it freehand (is that right? lol) and the other one on youtube used the laserjet transfer method

[Kaotik]

ghostman, you will want to use the course grinding wheel for fast material removal, then once you get close the the line which has either been marked, scribed, dotted or printed pull out the files and do the rest by hand. Using files may be slower but it is more accurate when not familiar with grinders.

Once you get use to how the big grinder reacts with different metal stock just take off enough material and then get a smaller grinder such as a Dremel and tighten up the marked line, move to the files afterwards to straighten up the edges and then different grits of sandpaper to smooth and polish them out.

[CVScam]

If I use a bench grinder I print out the template then cut it out and glue it to the blade or use an iron and transfer it to the blade. I use the bench grinder to do a rough outline on the blade. I don't try to do all the fine cuts with the bench grinder, I use a dremel tool or a set small hand files to finish the pick. I have tried to make rakes and ball picks with a bench grinder but I never seem to get them right unless I use my dremel to finish them.

[Firearm]

Unless you have some prior experience with a grinder, it'll just take a little time. Keep trying and each one will get better. Experiment with different sizes as you will probably make a couple you like for different locks. Keep at it and it'll work out for you!

[zeke79]

If methods mentioned above do not work, trace the template outline on with a sharpie marker and then grind just outside of those lines and finish with hand files. It takes longer but will produce a fine pick in the end.

[ghostman]

yeah zeke thats wat i used for my second attempt which came out drastically better. i colored everythign aroudn the pick template so i just grinded the black area.

[bumber]

all of these work and none of them are bad techniques but it all depends on 1.metal 2.grinder 3. EXP in metal cutting:) all the rest is practice

[fizzmahon]

Your grinder will not affect your picks too much as long as you know how to work metal. Use your grinder to wear it down close to your template and finish it iff with a dremmel or by hand. It just takes patients, i put so much work into my home made picks and it payed off.

[digital_blue]

I know my pick making got much better after I got some Bogotas from raimundo. It was not until then that I realized just how smooth and shiny homemade picks could get.

It's all about the finish.

db