I hope this clears up any mystery for beginners :-)

Here's a tip: Bend the end first before you cut it to length in case it breaks when you bend it.

FYI we can get all the free wiper Blades you can want by going to any auto parts store trash cans on a rainy day.  Walmart too!

My dad told me to become a locksmith, he said it will open so many doors for me

6:00 My heart kinda sank when I saw you fumbling about with a tape measure when you literally have a cutting board with measurements right in front of you. Lmao.

Made me a couple of these. Very satisfied with rigidity. Easy to implement torque but still bends enough to feel feedback from the core. Thanks!

I've found that the bristles from street sweepers are awesome.  If you see a street sweeper in a parking lot at night, spend a few minutes looking around that parking lot the next day and you may find a couple that broke off.  They aren't pretty, but are nice spring steel and the dimensions are perfect for tension wrenches.  Their thinnest dimension is actually thinner than what you have in this video, and being spring steel, they handle the pressure as well as (if not better than) the thicker stock but give you more room in keyways.  I spend a minute or two with high-grit sandpaper to smooth the faces before I start bending or cutting.  The grocery store I go to most often has a pretty overzealous sweeping schedule, and over the course of a six month period, I was able to find enough bristles to last me decades and hand some over to some of my locksport friends.  All I did was park at the end of the first set of stalls and look on one side of the walkway going in to the store and the opposite side on the way out.  I'd choose a different lane each visit and averaged around six bristles per week, going to the store one or two times each week.

I have learned to love making the wrenches so they're "bent the other way," so that once bent, the are as flat as the metal is thin.  You have to use a torch and get the metal glowing hot, but most metal appropriate for a tension wrench will bend this way beautifully when hot enough.  It takes a bit of practice to get a pretty bend, but once you figure it out it's easy.  Once bent to the angle you want it, heat it up again and use your pliers to flatten it out since they usually want to twist a little bit.  Note that if you make wrenches like these, the body will be pointing vertical, not horizontal.

The end of the blade with a groove that you cut and discarded at minute 7:45 is useful to make a pick, other teacher on youtube shows how to do it right.

Cracking me up!  The cutting mat has CM marks and would be easier to measure using it than a tape!  LOL

Best video I have seen.
I was about to pay $20 + $10 shipping for multiple Tension wrenches now I just went to auto parts trash can and have 20 Tension wrenches (9.5 x 0.3cm).
Thank You for this Great Video!

Thanks so much for this. I too, heard the "make 'em out of wiper blades" referenced in several video's and was clueless.

you can also just pinch the end of the wiper and flex/pull the end towards the middle of the blade. thats what those notches at the end are for(manufacture). you have to over pinch so the notches pass and over flex the middle so the blade shortens enuf to pull out of the tangs. lil safer/quicker not sure you can be trusted with a razor ;)

Pro tip: the mat has a ruler on the edge.

Great video! I think these were the first tools I made when I started picking 😃 I've never been able to manage making an actual pick from any though, I think because of the width of the inserts (mentioned by Leon's comment)

Calling Wilko a hardware store is the biggest compliment ever.

Street sweeper machines shed bristles very often. I use them to make picks as well as tension wrenches.
A small bit of heat from a handheld propane torch allows you to curve them upwards enough to make some high ended picks.

Love your videos, my friend. I've learned so much from you.

Is that a soldering mat! You're multi talented! I've honestly never made a turning tool from a wiper insert, and this was pretty good! Love these!

Made loads of these,they work equally as good as bought ones,I use a 6" shifting spanner to bend them and bend them upwards,My local garage is starting to wonder what the F*** I`m doing though I think lol :D

Great info bud ! thanks for sharing, I have bad luck when looking for inserts, the only ones i ever find are the thinnest ones, but the other day while walking home from my doctors office, I finally found the thickest one, lol so i was able to use it to make 2 different width tension wrenches