Dangerfield lever padlock picks

[Solomon]

I picked up a Squire 440 recently and tried my hand at making some picks for it, but I failed miserably so I treated myself to the Dangerfield set. I'm having a bit of trouble with them though. It seems like nomatter how much tension I use, levers aren't setting. It's worth noting that my experience with lever locks is limited to a 3 lever mortice I had on loan for a brief period, and that was a good while ago.

I've seen people pick this exact lock with very little effort, and I can't understand why it's giving me so much trouble. So, I come to you guys for help. I know all the theory, but when it comes to actually doing it I'm not having the best time. When I started out with pin tumblers I had major problems and it all came down to tension in the end; I assume this is going to be the same story. How on earth do I find the correct tension for this sucker? I tried applying extra heavy tension to find which lever was binding the most, but they all seem to move fairly freely. Thing is driving me nuts. From the videos I've seen, when the lock is successfully picked it's obvious that very heavy tension was being used. Why on earth am I having such a hard time with this?

Here are some pretty pictures for your trouble.

The padlock in question, with keys:


And the picks:


Hopefully someone can give me a bit of hands-on insight when it comes to these tools. Seriously, nomatter how much tension I apply it's just not doing anything. I'm definately using the correct size tensioner for the lock, and it's definately on the bolt. I'm all out of ideas but I'm determined to get the hang of it, so I'll be playing around with them in the meantime. I also got some dimple picks so if I'm not getting anywhere after a while I'll have a play around with those.

Cheers everyone!

[huxleypig]

Have you done it yet?

I find with lever locks like this that it feels like none of the levers are binding when in fact you ARE raising them but only ver slightly every time. So I alternate between each one lifting them a little bit at a time.

Also, have you tried pulling 'back' on the tension wrench whilst applying tension? I've had to do this before when they wouldn't bind and it worked.

[exspook]

try just tickling the bellies of each lever as these only have little lifts


slowley does it but the picks do work a treat

if you are putting to much rension on the tension piece you will not get the feel of the levers setting

dave

[ratlock]

I just found this old thread whilst searching google, looking for images of non curtain lever picks I hope to have made up to my own spec, to show the engineer who will be doing the work.
Here are Two pictures of a lever padlock pick I had bought, being used in a squire padlock. The first with the tensioning pin too long, and was hitting the bolt, and not getting in to engauge the bolt talon.

The second shows the position of the tensioner after the tension pin has been shortened slightly and turned enough to properly put tension on the bolt.