Thank you very much for the offer Raymond (if you were taking to me,) I'll pm you if I run out of options as I'd feel guilty of taking advantage of your generosity without first exhausting a few more possibilities.
Has anyone tried making either picks or tension wrenches out of
steel fish tape/draw wire/draw tape? It's usually blued spring steel and come in 1/4", 1/8" and 3/16" widths ( I'd take 1/4" of course,) it'd need to be annealed to shape it into tension wrenches. I'll get a replacement roll ( I have no need for the spool + handle) and experiment myself, I'm pretty sure it'll work well for picks ( pro: less material to remove for the pick part and no teeth to remove, con: less material for the handle part.)
I've tried junior hacksaw blades( like in Pyro's video,) but I wasn't patient enough and didn't pay enough attention regarding the temper of the metal (it became brittle and snapped first use.) I've gathered enough information about the process so I'll give it another shot with both junior hs. blades and fish tape.
I probably missed my best chance at scoring some summer windshield wiper blades (i.e. beginning of winter) but spring is around the corner so I'll try to spot a street sweeper when they do a spring clean up.