some of my picks

[femurat]

This thread will show some picks I make.
Here is my last 2012 pick, a Gillette hook I made for Puritanen. It's a steep hook with a thin shaft, great for high low bittings. It's a bristle shaped with my wet grinder, sanded to 1000 grit sandpaper and buffed with the red polishing compound. Heat shrink and 2 drops of super glue to keep it in the handle, an used Gillette shaver.
I tested it with the first lock I grabbed from my toy box, an American 5200. Very precise and agile pick.

Cheers

[easy-e]

Looks great! I like the handle idea.

[Alaphablue]

Very nice , gillette the best a man can get

[GWiens2001]

Here is another great pick made by Femurat. He made this dimple lock pick for me, and it works great. The bamboo handle is very comfortable, too!
sorry the pics are a little fuzzy - my son kept grabbing my arm as I took the pics.
Hope you don't mind my adding to this thread, Femurat.

[darkhorse]

looks fantastic....when you say gillette pick do you mean just the handle or is it all from a razor??

[femurat]

Thanks for the compliments

Hey Gordon, I like very very much your addition to the thread. You gave me an idea: everybody who has a pick I made is welcome to post a picture here. Let's see if somebody follow your example.

Darkhorse, only the handle is Gillette. The pick was a street cleaning bristle.

Happy new year everybody

[Oldfast]

Very nice! I remember you mentioning the Gillette handle a while back...
I liked the idea then, and it looks great now. Great shape on that hook too.

Lookin' foward to more pictures

[Puritanen]

Femurat, it's beautiful! I can't wait to get my hands on that

[femurat]

I had an oil dipstick from an old car laying around so I made a huge diamond. I've never made a pick this big, it's almost 5 mm tall... I'll try it and let you know how I like it.
It's also thicker than my usual bristle ones. The idea is to have a strong pick for big and gunky locks. I guess it'll give great feedback also.
I'll play with it for a few days to see if it really needs to be a little thinner or not. Since there's a small file mark at the diamond base, filing it down a little would improve its appearance too.

Cheers

[femurat]

Here it is after some filing and sanding. I wrote the dimensions in mm before and after. Usually I don't use the caliper but this time I had to. I measured my favorite diamond and discovered that its tip is 3,2 mm tall, this one was 4,3 so I decided to shorten a lot the tip of this new pick and to thin out just a bit its shaft. Now it's 3,6 mm tall, just a bit bigger than my usual picks but it's still agile in standard keyways.
I'll play with it for a few days and then make a handle for it...

Cheers

[Oldfast]

That's lookin much better. I like the more gradual curve that's now on it...
the one that runs from the shaft up to the peak of the diamond. Nice.

[rai]

I was looking at another pickers commercial picks the other day,
it just struck me that most of them are just TOO BIG, its a miracle that anyone can pick a lock with them. they all seemed like good blanks to carve real picks from.
handmade picks are so much better and sized right for the job.

love your steep diamond, femurat, its been a while since i made one of those.

[Alera]

I really like the idea with the Gillette handle. Recycling the right way ^_^

[rerun12]

some nice looking picks there.

i dont make as many picks as i used to but when i do/have, always had a hard time designing the perfect handle. ive seen some pretty cool ideas on here such as josh's handles and clifflockpicks. oh, and that ratyoke guy is a fucking artist. for me, i feel like i get way better feedback when i have complete control over the pick itself and alotta that, for me, has to do with a proper handle.

ive already put in some orders with a few people on here and lookin to buy a few more.

if any of the master craftsmen on here are lookin to make a few bucks send me a pm and hopefully we can do some business. great community you guys have created here

[femurat]

Thanks for the compliments my friends. Here is a picture of my favorite bamboo pick in action.



Cheers