Lockpick "sensitivity" question

[Nudethecih]

Hello all,

I am a newb to lockpicking, I purchased a beginner set of lockpicks from Southord and I find they are very uncomfortable to use, they are super thin and sharp, I was wondering if there would be any harm in me wrapping them in something like electrical tape, to make them less painful. Or would that make them to cushioned for me to feel the responses from my lockpicking attempts.

Or if anyone has another idea please let me know.

[gloves]

Hello and welcome

It seems odd to me that commercially-available lock pick sets are uncomfortable to use, maybe you're putting too much strength on them.
If I pictured them properly, your set has metal handles. Padding them will do no harm (as long as you pad only the handle itself and not the thinner part which goes inside the lock) except a little loss in sensitivity/feeling while manipulating the lock.

You can wrap them in electrical tape or use the plastic covering of an electrical wire. Or again make a wooden handle with a standardized slot for your picks. It is all up to your imagination and needs.

Cheers

[unjust]

i concur that commercial (heck any) tool should be comfortable to use, and if you're hurting using it you're probably doing it wrong. lockpicks are (generally) doing very delicate things, and don't need much force, so odds are good you *are* making the common beginners mistake of using WAY too much force. (i routinely still do so years on)

that said, a number of commercial sets do still come with either burrs on the metal, or relatively sharp corners where they were formed if they weren't tidied up a bit.

if the edges of the handles actually feel sharp (as in you can scratch the back of your fingernail with them) you'll be better served to take a *very* fine sand paper to them (i'd start with 400, if not 1000) just along the edges to smooth that off.

likewise on the working portions of the picks, on several of them there are supposed to be small sharper bits, but you want most of it to be nice and smooth rather than a sharp cutting edge. the actual work you're trying to do is at the very tip of the pick with the pin, and anything that'll catch on part of the lock other than that tip will give you poorer feedback, and potentially scratch the lock. you wouldn't use a wood handsaw as a shim because the teeth will cut into the edge of the material, and on a small scale, burrs and even a knife edge can mar or catch on surfaces.

there are a number of pick making threads on here that give great finishing advice for sanding (most of them stickied) and rather than link to one, i'm gonna suggest that you read through them yourself so that you see several options and sus out which is the best for you.

n.b. you may not need to do this, if the edges aren't scratching you'll just be removing metal you don't need to and you probably are using too much force anyway.

[solus2sail]

Southord sells kits with lots of "fillers" and a number of duplicates. I made the mistake of buying their 20 piece MPSX-20 and the majority of picks are about .040" from tip to handle. This makes them difficult to use as there is no width in the handle to spread out hand pressure while picking.