Luxembourg - Lockpicking Beginner

[jayjay1317]

Helloo there!

I have just signed up and I'm thinking this forum a wonderful idea (especially for beginners like me).
Now, I'm having trouble with making picks out of hacksaw blades, they always break inside the lock, but I have to make them that width, because if I d't, they won't enter the lock.... Waht can I do?
(Here in Luxembourg, there are no possibilities of buying lockpicks and I don't want to pay the usual exorbitant portos of internet shops......

Is there anyone in this forum from luxembourg? Someone who could help me?

Thx,
Jayjay

[iNtago]

what are you using to grind?
are you quinching?

Look at the templates at this site, they may help

[jayjay1317]

Yes I am quinching often (everytime I feel a little heat) and after that I'm hardening the steel by holding it into a gas flame and immediately cooling it in a glas of water.

For the grinding I'm using a normal grinder.....those with the wheel that turns ...
I don't have a dremel or anything like that so I have to use the file to make for example a snake rake.....
The form of my picks look rather good, but they brake, as I said....
You know, I make them that thin because every lock I've seen til today is very narrow, so I can't understand how several of the picks shown on photos here can work.....they would be much too wide for my locks^^

I think it's possibly the fact that I'm using too much power lifting the pins, but if I don't, they won't move! I even tried to give less tension, but that doesn't work either.... What shall I do?

I looked at this set http://www.lockpickshop.com/p-C2010.html, but I think that all in all 70 Dollars is way too much money for me.... and if the problem is that I do brake them using too much power, then I don't see why I should pay 70 Dollars for braking them.......

[raimundo]

flame hardening is the problem, I personally wouldn't do it. the results are hard to control exactly, in fact the same pick shaft could have sections that are soft, and other sections that are brittle. the pick handle makes a heat sink to bleed heat off the thick end of the pickshaft, while the pick tip will become too hard and brittle. the only reliable way of heat treating any steel is one where the entire piece of metal is brought to the same heat uniformly, in an oven. then tempered by drawing down the heat slowly.