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Spring wire

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David DAngelo

32 Cal.
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I would like to make some touch hole picks, but I connot find wire stiff enough. Any suggestions would be great.
 
I hammer my vent picks out of coat hangers, after heating them red hot with a propane torch. Hammer them square, and then grip one end in a bench vise, and turn the other( twisting action) with vise grips holding the other end. It makes a nice decorative turned handle. I make a loop at one end, to give leverage, and to provide a place for a tie. The other end is hammered to a long point. Then its cooled in oil, to turn the pick black. I file the pick end small enough and long enough to pass through the vent hole and reach the opposite of the bore. I then file flats at the point on opposite sides to make a small " shovel effect", which helps move the powder aside, and pull out " fines " the may block the vent. I also round the "Point" so I don't stab myself. The pick doesn't have to have a sharp point on it.

In practice, the pick is pushed through the vent into the powder charge, giving a couple of twists back and forth, and then with drawn. Then I prime the pan, close the frizzen, and prepare to fire. The hole I leave in the powder charge gives a place for the heat from the burning prime to reach MULTIPLE granules of powder inside the barrel, where multiple fires will be started to speed ignition.

I have two commercial picks that are made from wire. Check with stores that supply fine piano wire. I simply found some small steel stock at a machine shop and bought a piece from them. It was under 1/16" of an inch, but how much smaller, I do not remember.

Take a spare vent with you when shopping the size, if you don't have a wire gauge. I used drill bits to figure out what the diameter of the vent hole was, and then went looking for wire or rod smaller than that drill size.

It was later that I tried to make my own picks, and now, in have made them for several people, who use them in their wool hats, as tassle keepers, or carry them tied to their bags. The longer pick I make fits men's hands( Shanks are 4-5 inches long) so much better than do the wires, that most men prefer my picks to the commercial wire ones you can buy. The T/C nipple wrench has a wire in the handle/ as does the adjustable powder measure sold by Tedd Cash, and some others. I also have a wire on my Hawken Shop Flint tool, but have never used it. The wires are small enough to use as a Nipple pick, and are really not designed as Vent picks.
 
You can buy different sizes of thin wire in 4 inch pieces in bundles cheap at party/craft stores that sell a lot of artificial flowers.

Mike
 
I like to forge them from small allen wrenches.

IMG_0759.jpg
 
If you have a music store in your area you can get used piano wire. Most stores will just junk out older lesser quality spinnets or uprights. The unwrapped wire is what you want, not the wound stuff. If you're lucky the shop might let you take the old piano with you. There is money to be had scrapping the old harps out of pianos.
 
Ask and ye shall recieve. Great ideas from the basic to creative. Looks like some good projects coming this week and yes I do have a music store near by. Thanks to all.
 
Smokinpole said:
I would like to make some touch hole picks, but I connot find wire stiff enough. Any suggestions would be great.

I seem to remember reading that many 18th century "priming wires" were made of copper. Copper is pretty soft.

I use plain stovepipe wire. It's pretty soft and does bend some, but I can form it to stay in the TH as I'm loading.

IMHO, music wire, or forged vent picks are ok, if one wants to go to all that trouble, but it's not necessary.
 
J.D. I seem to remember reading that many 18th century "priming wires" were made of copper. Copper is pretty soft[/quote said:
I think the reason the old picks were made of brass or copper is that the barrels were made of soft iron and the iron picks would eventually enlarge the hole. If you hammer the brass/copper pick it will work harden but will not be hard enough to damage the vent hole.
 
I use soft, cold- rolled, low carbon, Coat hangers to make the vent picks, because you CAN'T harden them no matter how you heat and quench them. They will not produce sparks, no matter what you strike them with, and they are too soft to do any damage to the barrel, or the vent liner.

But, the coat hanger wire is easily maleable. Allen wrenches are made of higher carbon steel, and are a lot more expensive to use to make a vent pick than a piece of coat hanger. I will make a half a dozen picks at one time, before I need to take a break from all the hammering, and handling the hot wire. If it took more time than that to make the picks, I wouldn't do it. You can find dealers at Friendship, and on -line suppliers, who sell vent picks.
 
Again, thank you for all the ideas and wisdom. I am an experience hunter with the flintlock. However I am an inexperienced craftsman. I do have vent picks but eventually I want everything I carry to be hand made by me. It will be a long road but a happy journey.
 
I use nails. I can't tell you which size but I had a box of them and they were cheap.
 
The best I have found is from guitar strings. I change out the strings every so often, so always have small spring wire when I need it. Anyone that has a guitar or banjo will have old stings.
 
rubincam said:
-----paper clips--nothing simpler--paper clips-----

YES!!!! :thumbsup:

I have seen about half a dozen originals. They are thin like paper clips. They are also not sharp, :shocked2:

Soak the clips overnight in vinegar. Straighten them, make the pick (with a simple round eye), then temper on the stove and quench. You can make a bunch of these really quick. And what a great guy you'll be, handing out free picks on the firing line. :wink:

I have never seen a original twisted and curled "hand forged" pick like so many people make now. :hmm:
 
Baling wire works very well. They will even harden a bit when heated to red and quenched in water.....
 
BountyHunter,

Thats what I used also. an antler tip and the core end of the "G" sting that would be wound at the tuning stock.

Jay
 
Black Hand said:
Baling wire works very well. They will even harden a bit when heated to red and quenched in water.....


Yeah that's what I meant with paper clips. I'm told you cannot temper mild steel. Heating and quenching will stiffen the wire up quite a bit.
 
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