Man, I hope I'm not the only one that has done this.

[JRock]

Well, I was re-keying the lock I use for practice. I was following a guide I saw on here and had taking out all but one pin. And I had been practicing getting the pins and everything back in before I put it back together. I was really surprised at how much easier it is to do the second time. The first time it took me a good hour to get the pins out and put one stack back in. This time I got all five pins in the lock in around five or six minutes. Still not great I'm sure... but I was still happy with myself and getting a little cocky. Well, I decide to move up to the two pin level to practice some more of my picking and I went ahead and put the two pin stacks in. Get it all back together and go to get my key out and I can't get it out. I instantly knew what I had done wrong. Can anyone here guess what I did wrong at this point? That's right. I put two of the bottom pins in the front of the lock, and two springs and top pins in the back of the lock. I didn't feel so cocky at this point. I was able to fix the mistake though... which was nice. I just really really hope I'm not the only one that has done this.

[MrScruff]

Hey, there's nothing wrong with being the example!

My "favorite" mistake was using a very long key pin and a very long driver pin; it was actually physically impossible to set the stack, there just wasn't room to move it up. It only took a whole day of cursing to figure out too!

[JRock]

Hey, there's nothing wrong with being the example!

My "favorite" mistake was using a very long key pin and a very long driver pin; it was actually physically impossible to set the stack, there just wasn't room to move it up. It only took a whole day of cursing to figure out too!

OK. That response has me worried. All the driver pins in my lock were the exact same length. It's how the lock came. It was brand new from the hardware store. I swear I didn't change it. Is this not supposed to be the case?

[deception]

Hey, there's nothing wrong with being the example!

My "favorite" mistake was using a very long key pin and a very long driver pin; it was actually physically impossible to set the stack, there just wasn't room to move it up. It only took a whole day of cursing to figure out too!

OK. That response has me worried. All the driver pins in my lock were the exact same length. It's how the lock came. It was brand new from the hardware store. I swear I didn't change it. Is this not supposed to be the case?

Some lock manufactures use balanced pin stacks, take Medeco for example, if you have a 1 bottom pin, you should be using the 1 top pin in that specific chamber. I think it just balances out the wear and tear on the key.

[MrScruff]

Hey, there's nothing wrong with being the example!

My "favorite" mistake was using a very long key pin and a very long driver pin; it was actually physically impossible to set the stack, there just wasn't room to move it up. It only took a whole day of cursing to figure out too!

OK. That response has me worried. All the driver pins in my lock were the exact same length. It's how the lock came. It was brand new from the hardware store. I swear I didn't change it. Is this not supposed to be the case?

Nah, nothing to worry about. I have literally hundreds of pins laying around and don't really put a lot of thought into which ones I grab. As long as it's the right type it goes in, which tends to give me erm... interesting results sometimes.