titanium picks and tension bar.

[jkolej]

Very nice, what kind of material and where to get it? And how is diameter of the material?

Went to hang out with a friend tonight and guess what he had titanium. 5/16 rod to be exact so i milled it down to 2mm wide blanks and we made some picks. had a mess up and turned it in to a tension bar. i only have picks of mine.

yeah yeah wide 5mm long 16 mm or how???

[Josh66]

Very nice, what kind of material and where to get it? And how is diameter of the material?

Went to hang out with a friend tonight and guess what he had titanium. 5/16 rod to be exact so i milled it down to 2mm wide blanks and we made some picks. had a mess up and turned it in to a tension bar. i only have picks of mine.

yeah yeah wide 5mm long 16 mm or how???

I think he means 5/16" (.3125" or 7.9375mm) diameter bar stock. That's how it reads to me, although it sounds like a huge waste of material...

edit
I re-read the post in question (pictures help, lol) - pretty sure he did in fact mean 5/16" bar stock, but I'm not sure what the 2mm is referring to.

[gnarus8429]

Moto and I were working in the same shop when these were cut. He is referring to the width of the milled "blank" or flattened portion at the end of the rod. It is difficult to get it it any thinner than that without the piece flexing so much the milling isn't as accurate. So when we get down that thin its on to the grinding wheel. I cut my first pick with just the grinding wheel (the hook below). That took a couple of days of work. With Moto's ninja milling skills we were busting them out in a couple of hours to a point they were usable. A final polishing and they turned out pretty well. These have been used some lately and don't have the finish they did but, you get the idea. The sad part is that I don't have anymore titanium rod and my supplier is no where to be found. I have some Titanium plate but, been too busy to try and get it cut. It is cool metal to work with though and worth the little bit of extra work.

picks.jpg

[Josh66]

I'd like to get some Ti bar stock and try something like that (I'd have to do it without a mill though...).

(Actually, I may have some Ti bolts that would be long enough to make something like this out of after cutting the head off...)

Do you know which alloy it is? All I've ever used before is 6Al-4V (or AMS4911 - same thing). I'm not sure what alloy the bolts I have are, but I can look it up when I go back to work.

I've seen people using CP (Commercial Pure) Ti, but I have never handled it before. It seems to be much cheaper than 6Al-4V, but I'm not sure how it compares as far as strength goes.

[gnarus8429]

I'm not sure what the bar was but, the plate I have now is CP. I got impatient and cut one out with the old angle grinder. I cut a quick bogota and will abuse the hell out of it and let you know how it holds up. I cut it a little thin too just to see what it would take to break it.

[gnarus8429]

Well that question is answered.....a section of the pick measuring .060 x .032 folded like a cheap suit. It looked really nice though. It is actually very soft it bends easily in those dimensions. It bends back very easily though and holds its shape. I cut a hook out of what was left and had the same result at .04 x.087. Bottom line is that this not the metal (at least for me) to cut picks out of. The bar stock by contrast is a different alloy and in those same dimensions is nearly indestructible. It is much more "stiff" and reacts more like a tempered spring steel. I don't know all of the technical terms but, I think you get the idea.

[Josh66]

Well, in my personal experience, Ti (my experience is limited to 6Al-4V/AMS4911) is much more flexible than steel when it gets down to lock pick thicknesses. It flexes a lot, but usually doesn't bend - it has more 'play', but it usually just flexes and springs back instead of staying bent permanently. If you make the thin section too long, it can make feedback feel different than steel picks - not necessarily bad, just different. It's a little bit springy.

I make my Ti picks with a little more meat on the shaft than my steel picks. Where the shaft ends and starts tapering into the handle, I try to keep that close to .100". I make the shaft 1.5" long, BTW. That seems like a good length to me - able to comfortably work in a 6 pin lock, but not so long that it gets too flexible.

It took a little trial & error before I settled on those dimensions, but so far they are working well.

edit
I'm interested in finding out if the CP stuff behaves the same way. It's about a third of the price of the aerospace stuff - just wondering what the 'compromise' is to make it that much cheaper...