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I've been interested in lockpicking/smithing for awhhile and I've finally gotten around to practicing in the last week or so. The first time I attempted to pick a Master Padlock (I believe it was a #3) it took me maybe 5 minutes. In about a week I was down to about 5 seconds, maybe less. Then I tried a Kwikset door lock and it took me about the same amount of time the first time and a week later I got it in about 20 seconds. Then I tried the Kwikset Deadbolt and had pretty much the same result with that that I had w/ the doorlock. Afterwards I took the lock out of my basement door and tried that. The lock is older than I am (almost 28) and in very poor shape (so bad even lubricant spray didn't help much) and that one was a little more difficult.
Now, like I said, i'm not getting cocky because judging by what I've read people have more problems picking their nose than picking a Kwikset (sorry, that was in bad taste) but for someone new I think this is still pretty good, no?. The point is I took the advice from several sources, read over several things several time (MIT Guide, Visual Guide to Lock Picking and How to Open Locks W/ Improvised Tools...), started off easy and will work my way up from there. I bought a higher security padlock and wound up having a little more trouble with it but I did get it in little time. So what i'm trying to say to newbies from a newbie is to take the advice of everyone here and in these guides and you will get far, fast. I received the package from Varjeal and will be working on that next. This definitely looks challenging.
Personally I prefer raking/scrubbing to individual pin picking but I did do both to make sure that it wasn't a fluke of the Dyno Kwik pick which I also purchased. Not so many people are as fortunate as me because I have a 40 hour a week job where I do about 5 hours worth of work a week (and it's really not fun believe it or not) so that gave me the opportunity to read and study this forum and the above mentioned guides/books about 4 or 5 times a day for a week and a half. But the point is they really do work and reading them and studying them many times in advance really worked for me.
I do have a question though. I tried to pick the back door of my house, which opens inwards, and the lock is too close to the siding on the house to be able to maneuver the tension wrench (the lock takes a full turn to open). The handiest thing I had was a bicycle spoke which I found can be used from reading the MIT guide. I cut it and filed it down and it seemed like it was going to work perfectly but even when I put the right amount of torque on the wrench it bent into a spiral and wasn't working well after that. Is there a way to harden the steel or am I just wasting my time in doing all this? Should I just cut the handle on an extra tension wrench I have to save time?
