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There is a Maker Faire in my town this weekend, where people show off their homebrew wares, teach workshops to help others learn the same skills and whatnot.
Honestly, I'm not 100% sure. I've never been to one before.

http://makerfaire.com/

Apparently lockpicking is a popular event at these events around the country, but they've never had anyone offer to set up a picking booth at the local one they hold each year. The organizer of this one wanted to learn how to pick, so she did a little searching online and sent emails to several of us in the area who are active on the forums and I agreed to teach some lockpicking classes over the weekend.

Spent some time this week gathering and ordering supplies but didn't feel like spending a buck or two apiece for tension wrenches, so this morning I cranked a few out.

Used flat stainless steel wire from windshield wiper inserts. Didn't have anything that would shear it cleanly, so I used pliers and bent it back and forth a few times to break them off at the lengths I needed. That left a rough edge so I used the wet grinder to smooth off the ends, then deburr the edges.
Here is a closeup of the ends, after grinding. For scale, each of these is about 3/32" or 2mm wide.

Grabbed a pair of channel lock pliers, made a long bend to use in the bottom of the keyway, and a short bend to use in the top of the keyway, and finished!
Not exactly artwork, but it'll get the job done.

Total time from start to finish, about two and a half hours for 88 wrenches, or about a minute and 45 seconds per wrench.
Hopefully the next batch will go quicker now that I have a routine for it.

that's a lot of tension...i sometimes get bored and make obscene numbers of wrenches, of all shapes and sizes, and half end up being useless at some, but decorative. i'll have to check if there's one of those events in my area. keep it up!

I also made 1000 business cards to hand out, with the URL of this forum. We may get a few more new members than usual over the next couple of days.

Holy tensors!! That's alot! That's great MBI... giving of your time so that other's might begin enjoying this hobby.


haha, that's GOOD!! I love it. Keep up the good work buddy

You are going to be doing that in your sleep