Common Cheap pick making material

[LocksmithArmy]

I found a new pick making material that has not been discussed here, that i have seen.

i was messing in some drawers at work and gound 2 boxes of these hanging folders. these suckers have 2 metal rods in them that are over 12 inches long 5/16ths of an inch tall and thin enough to fit in the american 5200's paracentric keyway.

there is less material to file away than the feeler gauge and they have great memory(so when you bend them they will spring back) they also have freat tensil strength. so when you hold them on edge(like a pick) it is very hard to bend them. even when filed down as thin as you need to to make a pick.

they cant be expensive and walmart carries them. they come in boxes of 25. thats 50 rods... 100 double sided picks. or whatever else you enjoy making. maby 125 to 150 single sided picks i dont know.

i made my first home made pick today. i used this material. it works like a charm

on to the pictures... sorry about the crappieness i had to borrow a (crappy) camera because i left mine in the car seat while i was home.(its in the mail though)

[LocksmithArmy]

how i made the pick was, i cut one of the rods in half and removed the white paint on the tip. the paint is easy to remove if you just cut 1 of the thin sides off the rest will peel off in 1 sheet.

then i just filed the shape of a hook. it looked to long in the handle so a filed the half diamond on the other side. then while i was picking it kept wanting to torque in my hand so then i filed the finger grooves...

easy...

all hand tools so i wasnt worried about any sort of temper loss due to heat.
i only had 320 grit sand paper so its not as shiny as it will be. when my other sand paper comes in the mail i will give it that mirror finish that works so well. but so far it has opened everything ive thrown at it. 2 master 140s and all the doorknobs around my work area... (about 4)

agin i must apoligize for the picture quality if i remember i will put better pictures up on here. if not i will have better pictures for my next creations

[NanoDuke]

That looks quite neat. The finger grooves have nice point symmetry.

[Solomon]

I haven't seen products like this here in the UK, but I'll have a look and see if I can find anything similar next time I'm out. You did a good job with these, I was never really into double sided picks but I'm thinking of making myself one with a hook on one end and a rake for the other. How do you get that nice gradual taper using hand files? The half diamond I made took forever to make and it still looks pretty jittery.

[raimundo]

I remember trying this material long ago, but my experiments did not find the metal quite as tempered as what LPA has found, but of course, this kind of thing probably has a lot of alloys that have been tried, so if anyone else uses these tell us if the metal is holding up or bending. LPA clearly has some of good quality.
my memory of using the material way back in the 80's may not be relevant today.

[LocksmithArmy]

I haven't seen products like this here in the UK, but I'll have a look and see if I can find anything similar next time I'm out. You did a good job with these, I was never really into double sided picks but I'm thinking of making myself one with a hook on one end and a rake for the other. How do you get that nice gradual taper using hand files? The half diamond I made took forever to make and it still looks pretty jittery.

check an office supply store...

i used 4 hand files.
1 large metal file that was way too big for detail but cut the pick shafts quickly.

the detail was done with a really small flat file a round file and like a simicircle file.it was flat on 1 end and the othe side had a curve and it came to 2 points where the flt and curve met.

i took the small flat file and cur using the broad side until it was 100 percent into the material. then i used the semi sirdle file and used the circle sice and cut thenew corners into slopes then i used a compination of the round and the simicircle till i got it looking as close as possible to what i wanted... then when i sanded it all fell together...

the cuts looked realluy bad until i got the sand paper on it and smoothed them out. but im hopin my filing skills will get better. ill call this one beginners luck with the finger grooves. they looked awful till i sanded it.

[Solomon]

I have to get myself some of this magical sandpaper. I'm making a point of going out to get some as soon as I get up tomorrow.

[LocksmithArmy]

ok heres my next one.

compliments to raimundo for the idea. he sent me a pick like this with a set. i thought it was a good idea but i found the handle on his to be a little too thin to grip.

so i made a bigger handle

[raimundo]

Remember to do all bending and twisting before cutting to shape, it just works out better that way

[LocksmithArmy]

i did but i still ended up cutting into the twist because i gave myself too short of a pick shaft. it looks ok that way though. and seems to wore fine

[raimundo]

cutting into the twist is not a problem, especially on yours as you have plenty of metal there.
Just sanding it will make it blend right in.

another very interesting pick and tensor making material that I sometimes can get are 'bladed' bicycle spokes, these come in a variety of crosssection profiles and different metals.

Having used spokes, I can tell you that some of the metal can be soft, but you can find some that is very stiff. the dumpster behind a high end bike shop will often have these for free.

[Hooty]

I'll have to try this, I work in a cube farm and when someone quits, gets promoted, or fired their cubicle gets scavenged for anything they may have left behind when they moved out (I've found some good stuff). These hanging folders are one of the few things nobody seems to want.

[roxylass]

6 inch jubilee clips are the right width and thickness.

[muddassarusa]

I found a new pick making material that has not been discussed here, that i have seen.

i was messing in some drawers at work and gound 2 boxes of these hanging folders. these suckers have 2 metal rods in them that are over 12 inches long 5/16ths of an inch tall and thin enough to fit in the american 5200's paracentric keyway.

there is less material to file away than the feeler gauge and they have great memory(so when you bend them they will spring back) they also have freat tensil strength. so when you hold them on edge(like a pick) it is very hard to bend them. even when filed down as thin as you need to to make a pick.

they cant be expensive and walmart carries them. they come in boxes of 25. thats 50 rods... 100 double sided picks. or whatever else you enjoy making. maby 125 to 150 single sided picks i dont know.

i made my first home made pick today. i used this material. it works like a charm

on to the pictures... sorry about the crappieness i had to borrow a (crappy) camera because i left mine in the car seat while i was home.(its in the mail though)

Good job bro nice research really cheap I know that some time peoples throw away