Josh66 - Homebrews

[Oldfast]

NICE! Cannot wait to see more Josh... always a work of art.

[Josh66]

Thanks.

BTW, the pitch of the peaks is such that only one peak is directly centered under a pin at a time. From what I've read, that seems to be the goal.

So far, I have to say that when it works, it works amazingly fast. I still haven't gotten anything "hard" open with it yet, but I probably need to work on my technique too.

[Josh66]

So, eveer since I've been making those titanium picks I've been using a half diamond almost exclusively...

I didn't have a regular half diamond pick with aluminum handles, so I made one the other day... I still have to polish it, but it's looking pretty nice. Pics tomorrow (well, technically later today).

[Josh66]

OK, so first - here's a better picture of that titanium bogata:


And now the half diamond I made last week:

[nozza36]

Wow ! beautiful josh , love it , and yup i am going green with envy mate !

[Riyame]

Wow man, those are some very nice pics!

[Josh66]

As far a polishing goes, this one is probably my best so far. Damn near flawless.

Each one has been a little better than the ones before it, and I feel like I'm approaching perfection, lol.

My first ones, sitting next to this, look truly horrible. I don't think I've posted any pictures of those here - they are sloppy though.

[Oldfast]

I sure am glad you take the time to post your pictures over here.

MAN!!... I just love lookin at em. Stunning work Josh. Very nice.

[jeffmoss26]

Beautiful work as always!

[piotr]

Very bacon

[Alaphablue]

Is it just me or does that half diamond have a perfect tapered the more of these you make the better they look . You lucked out having lock picking for a hobby all those scraps at work perfect for pick making and I can only imagine the tools there.

[Josh66]

the more of these you make the better they look

I agree.

I can tell the chronological order they were all made in just by looking at them. I think this is my favorite handle shape so far too. Though I do also really like the super short handles I've made.

From what I've seen other people making, I tend to make my half diamonds a lot larger than most people - but honestly it really works for me. I feel like if it were much smaller, I'd rather just use a hook.

There's not really anything to judge size from in those pictures, but at the peak of the half diamond it is .108" tall, the shaft right behind the tip is .055" tall, the shaft at the back (right before it starts tapering into the handle) is .105" tall. The 'working length' of the pick shaft is 1.5" long - that's not counting the part where it tapers into the handle. The overall length of the pick is 5.667" long. The pick shaft is .023" thick (I usually try to get that as close to .020" as I can).
(I just took all of those measurements with my calipers.)

For maybe the last 6 months, I've been making all of my pick shafts 1.5 inches long, and .100" at the back (as close to that as I can keep it).

[Josh66]

Made a new pick specifically for the finger pins on my ASSA Twin today...

Should work alright as a dimple pick whenever I get a dimple lock (still haven't tried to pick one yet - but now I have a good excuse to buy one.


I was going to put a notch in it, but decided not to. I may try that later on a new pick though.



It's .032" Ti, and I did not thin it out - for the only things I'll be using it for, the thickness won't matter much, and may actually help.

On that first picture, the handle looks pretty short - but it's not. The strap that goes around my pick case is on top of it. The whole pick is almost 7 inches long (I may cut an inch or two off). Not sure if I'll make handles for this one or not yet.

I'm sure everybody knows what I'm talking about, but here are the pins I made it for:

[Oldfast]

Nice! Don't take no shit Josh... get it. lol
ASSA's still intimidate me (which turns me on). lol

[Josh66]

Finally made a 'proper' Bogata.








I haven't done the final sand and polish yet (I wanted to make sure they worked first, lol) - but they're certainly smooth enough to use. I might make the single peak pointier and shorter when I do the final sand.

.040" titanium, pick end thinned down to .020" (next time I think I'll leave it a little thicker - .025 or .030). The wrench end is about 1/8" wide.

I haven't been able to pick any security pins with the triple peak yet, but the single peak works nicely as a half diamond. The triple peak opens low security (no security pins) deadbolts & cylinders pretty easily.