by Shrub » 23 May 2005 4:36
Its nice that you are at least having a go,
Raimondo is the king of all things makeshift and amazes me with the places he finds pick making materials,
Tension wrench's ; in my opinion wiper blades are by far the best source for these, get hold of used wiper blades (wind sheild wipers) you will find that if you remove the rubber you are left with a length of good quality steel the right dimensions for tension wrenches, cut to length with pliers or somthing then file the ends square then bend to the desired shape,
Padlock shims ; have a look for raimondos posts, he has made them from the metal clips you find in vcr tapes, you can also make them from pop cans (as well as cylinder shims for dismantleing cylinders) have a search for them on site,
Picks ; Hacksaw blades, kitchen knifes, feeler gauges etc etc are all good sources of material, if its metal and hard you are fine making picks from it, a metal that bends and stays bent is not going to be very good for making picks,
As for tools, you really do need some way of gringing material away, the best material to use for pickmaking is strung steel or hardened steel either are hard and a file will not make much of an impact if a lot of material is to be removed, an angle grinder could be used at a push and these can be bought from around £6 off your local markets etc, the smother the file the better it will be at cutting hard materials, you could use an oil stone but you would be forever taking material off to make a pick, use a stone for deburring,
Have a good search round site and you will find many differant tips and tricks, you just have to look.
Good work, you just wait until you do start making your picks from hacksaw blades - its really like an art.
