What did you pick today?

[gademsky]

I picked 5 Yale padlocks that were all locked in a ball. I figure they were cheap locks, it took about half hour while I was watching TV. Interesting the shackles were locked with ball bearings, so maybe they are step up from master locks. They were however laminated locks.

[adi_picker]

Lockwood Twin / ASSA Twin 1800!



Woohoo! My first challenge lock opened! This is the lock I gutted here.

-adi_picker

[adi_picker]

Bilock Cam Lock provided by PhatPhish.



Used a Bogota to rake this open and it came easy, so I broke out the hook and started fresh, and whammo! I gutted it, and there is a few good reasons as to why this was an easy pick.. Perhaps I will be able to detail them later.

-adi_picker

[femurat]

Bilock Cam Lock provided by PhatPhish.



Used a Bogota to rake this open and it came easy, so I broke out the hook and started fresh, and whammo! I gutted it, and there is a few good reasons as to why this was an easy pick.. Perhaps I will be able to detail them later.

-adi_picker

Was it heavily mastered or had an easy bittings?

Congrats anyway

[GWiens2001]

Good work, adi_picker. Still remember my first BiLock.

You say good reason for easy pick. Did it have a lot of 4 cuts?

Gordon

P.S. - I have the # 2,000 post in this thread!

Gordon

[adi_picker]

Thanks Guys, twas a good feel! I do feel that I cant notch this one up quite yet though, as I have since been picking on my other BiLocks to no avail. Its a great example of how the difficulty of the 'same lock' can sometimes be wildly different. The lesson for me here was to never assume any lock to be difficult until attempted. You could come across a super high security lock for example, only to find it picks easy because its missing the sidebar or other locking mechanism.

2 Reasons why this was easy, and Femurat, you nailed the first. It was indeed heavily mastered, lots of pins with multiple holes, or the elongated holes. The second was that this is an early BiLock. You probably already know, but the false gates in the early ones were too shallow, and you hardly feel the sidebar slide over them, let alone get stuck in, or set in them. Im not sure for how long they produced the pins like this, but it did come to their attention, and they did fix it. I can confirm this from most all of my other BiLocks, where the false gates are 1/3 - 2/3rds the depth of the true gates. As I mentioned above, I have since been picking on my other BiLocks with the deeper false gates, and they are quite a bit more difficult.

Its nice to be past the 5pins though

-adi_picker

[GWiens2001]

Two locks that were handy when I finally opened an 'extra' that WestCoastPicks tossed in on a trade.



Those picks work great, and love how they retract and the tension wrenches fit in as well. They look to be 3D printed. All I needed to do was add a little grease to smooth out the sliding.







Sorry I didn't open these sooner. Big thanks, WestCoastPicks!

Gordon

[sisk]

Those are some nice picks Gordon.

As for what I picked today, typical Sunday night pile in front of me. With the exception of one of the American 1100s (the one I posted about having trouble getting feels from last week - all the sudden it started cooperating with me tonight after a month or two of frustration) all of it is stuff I've picked before.

[adi_picker]

Thats some nice volume sisk! Are the American 1100s pinned the same as an American 700? I ask because I have 700s but the 1100s are harder to find in Oz. Might pick one up..

Is that some sort of epoxy cast I spy to the middle left?

-adi_picker

[Silverado]

Middle right? I see a 3-D printed cylinder holder (Don't know what the user actually called it). There's a thread on here somewhere for them, a member makes them to put cylinders in making them easier to hold and pick in the hand.

[adi_picker]

Ahhh, right you are Silverado. A 3D printed KIK holder.

Been working my first Medecos the last week or so. Opens on the 2 4pin (inc sidebar) payphone locks, and have been progressively pinning the 6pin mortice. Have been able to open it at 4 pins so far, stuck at 5 atm. Have tried manually moving the pins into sidebar set with some luck, but most of the time just using a Bogota. Also reasonably easy to open the payphone lock with the easier bitting using the Bogota alone. Think the myth of the Medeco has been well and truly busted for me.



Graphite disaster!

-adi_picker

[sisk]

Is that some sort of epoxy cast I spy to the middle left?

Middle right? I see a 3-D printed cylinder holder (Don't know what the user actually called it). There's a thread on here somewhere for them, a member makes them to put cylinders in making them easier to hold and pick in the hand.

That's exactly what it is. Very handy for picking kiks. Before I printed it I was having some headaches with putting my kiks in a vice. Given that I've got around 40 kiks it's been a real boon to me. It's called the Ergonomic KIK Lock Holder on Thingiverse. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1386781

[Robotnik]

Waiting on my wife to get ready tonight, I dragged this original Primus out of my drawer o' random locks. Started absentmindedly picking at it. Pretty easy bitting, as it turned out, and after setting the top pins, managed to jiggle the sidebar pins into place with a special rake. If I'm recalling correctly, this is Primus #3 for me.

[Br0keN]

Today I picked a mul t lock jr. and some vistawall locks with custom pinning I got off ebay. the visawalls had all different types of pins and one even had a piece of a screw in it.

[Br0keN]

well guys i just got an assa 600 open. I thought i would never get it, it took light med to light tension with extra finesse with my pick. now on to a 6000