How to bend the picktip?

[femurat]

I'm making some picks for a dimple lock. The starting shape is an half diamond. I'd like to bend the tip so to have more "range" in lifting the pins. I'd like to smoothly bend the tip like if the pick itself was wrapped around a small cylinder. If the shaft remains flat or not is not an issue. I just want more manoeuvrability in the keyway.

Is it better to bend the bristle before or after filing its shape? Do I need a sort of mould?
I've tried to gently tap with a hammer the picktip while it was in the vise but I broke 2 picks out of 3...

Thanks

[NanoDuke]

Cold bending it won't work. You need to heat it up to red-hot before you can bend it. Get two pairs of needle nose pliers and a butane torch.


It's best to bend it before you shape it. That way you have more metal to work with and you're less likely to break your pick.

[femurat]

Thanks for the suggestion NanoDuke.
I don't like the idea of losing the temper of the pick, that's why I'd like to cold bend it.
I can try to bend the tip before shaping it. If the pick snaps I can cut it and start again without wasting a shaped pick. If this fails I'll try with the torch...

Cheers

[raimundo]

I think you can cold bend to some extent, if you can find a metal part with a rounded groove and some round shaft that you could hammer down into the pick shaft stock.

doing this to the metal stock before cutting the pick is the way that least risks breaking the metal by too sudden a bend, and allows for the cutting of the pick to be planned to cut away any flaws that may occur,
the down side is it takes a great deal more force to bend the end of the metal stock.

You could cut a bit to isolate the pick tip and just apply force to that part of the metal stock, but you risk puttin a bend in the metal that you don't intend because some part of the metal stock is weaker for being cut away.
this puts the full strength of a pick tip flag against the thin shaft that may be twisted or bent by the force.

Force could be applyed gradually with a vise,

A near finished pick tip would be theoretially the easiest bend because most of the metal that would be resisting would be cut away, then finishing would hide the marks of the the bend.

You might take a concrete nail and grind the tip to something like the bend you intend, sand that smooth, and place it over the pick tip on a block of hardwood, and strike it like a silversmith tooling a design, if it comes out inaccurately, look at what you got an optimize it for what it is by finishing it, You may suprise yourself and learn something new.

[femurat]

Thanks Ray, you gave me a lot of useful info... as usual!

The vise concept is the one I like the most. It's like a deep drawing process. I have to find something to use as punch and forming die. Then I'll fix them in the vise and slowly tighten. It seems the better solution.

I think I'll play with the rounded nail and hard wood also... I'll let you see the results.

Cheers