A Thought on home-made electric pick gun.

[Varjeal]

I was reading some threads on making home-made electric pick guns when an idea sprung to mind....

How about using one of those "electric carving knives". You know, the ones where two blades move in and out in opposite directions rapidly. Someone could snap the blades off short, grind'em to snake rake profiles, and use the tool as an electric raking tool....

Just a thought.

[mbell]

Don't they have an in-out movement rather than an up -down movement?

[Chucklz]

Yes they do. But Varjeal was talking about making a motorized rake. I imagine something like the Dyno Kwik Pick, but that doesn't suck.

[Romstar]

Okay, I have five of those electric knives here. (Don't ask why).

I'll try this for you, but I can immediately see two problems.

1. The mechanism is heavy, and was designed that way to balance the knife. It won't be a comfortable device.

2. Raking is inherently a semi-destructive picking method because of the scraping of the pick across the surface of the pins. Increasing the speed and pressure of this action will most likely result in greater damage to the lock.
While this may not be imediately evident on the first attempt, it will most assuredly be apparent on the second and subsequent attempts. Eventually leading to a failure of the key to open the lock due to wearing down of the pins.

In cases where you are responding to a lockout condition, this may not be a drawback. In practicing though, it will cause eventual wear to your locks, and require you to replace the pins, if not the core of the lock.

Off to the grinder to see what happens. I think I have an old Yale without a key I can try this on.

Oh, a third problem just poped to mind. While the standard mechanical pick design relys on force transference to "bounce" the driver pins into the shell of the lock, raking does not have exactly the same effect. As I see it, many raking attempts are foiled by the use of higher security features such as mushroom and spool pins, as well as sidebar devices. The raking action does not affect all the pins at the same time, and relies partly on tension to set the raked pins at the sheer line. This may result in several false settings involving the security pins. As we have mechanized the action, the false settings may result in more wear to the lock in the action of trying to open it.

Like all things, we shall see what comes out in the wash.

Romstar

[David_Parker]

I think an awesome pick-gun would work on the basis of two rakes silding in opposite directions of each other. In other words, take your hands, put them together, and rub them back and forth. I thought that this might somewhat help defeat Mul-T-Locks, but then again, the other pick might be useless.

...does this make sense?

-Dave.

[WhiteHat]

I think an awesome pick-gun would work on the basis of two rakes silding in opposite directions of each other..

this is exactly what those electric knives do...

[Luke]

Do u reckon that make cordless knives for camping and BBQ's?

[toomush2drink]

LOL can just imagine people of this forum scouring the cooking utensil department of the local store for various electric "thingys" that could be converted into a pick gun. As we are on this wave length how about the bigger version that you use to cut trees etc with ? Lets face it would defeat any spool you throw at it and you could charge for a new lock each time.

Before you all flame me im just having a laugh...........

I still think the electric razor idea is the best yet.

[Romstar]

I think an awesome pick-gun would work on the basis of two rakes silding in opposite directions of each other. In other words, take your hands, put them together, and rub them back and forth. I thought that this might somewhat help defeat Mul-T-Locks, but then again, the other pick might be useless.

...does this make sense?

-Dave.

Well, this is the beauty of the electric knife. You can attach one pick or two. Because of the mechanism, as one pick is moving into the lock, the other is moving out.

I might see if I can modify the mechanism to allow up and down motion similar to the regular vibratory pick gun. A combination of these motions may prove useful on certain lock designs.

Somehow I get the feeling I'm going to be prototyping this thing from a knife, and then building a completely new one in a normal type case.

As toomush2drink suggested, the electric razor is still one of the best starting points for a home made pick gun. I know, because I've built several.

Now all I need is a digital camera.