I Think I've Had A Breakthrough!

[roboman]

I've been going non-stop with learning to pick and had my first big breakthough. I was putting waaaayyyy too much tension on the poor lock and wrench. After reading some posts I lightened up to the point that it felt ridiculous. Now I can get a brinks lock that earlier was unopenable bu raking it once or twice! Thanks guys!

[Romstar]

Keep up the good work roboman. It's loads of fun.

Romstar

[digital_blue]

Way to go roboman! Exhilerating, isn't it?

db

[bigbike]

Way to go! There is nothing like the feeling of getting that lock to open the first time, and then being able to open it again a second time, a little faster. Each time I open a lock I learn a little more about it and my own abilities. Here's wishing you much luck and sucess.

[RangerF150]

WOW! You read some posts and learned from them.
Well done, it's nice to see that someone actually does read old posts and actually can, and did learn from them

Just goes to show ya what you can do !

Keep with it , it's great fun , i love having a key for a lock sitting there , but open it without it . Keys are for loosers

[roboman]

You're right! It's feel awesome to see the key right there and be able to get the lock open almost as easily.

I've gotten pretty good at raking so I'm now going to try to improve my picking skills.....

[Rowlock]

As a fellow newbie, I'm finding that a very useful exercise is to consciously try to pick with as little tension as you possibly can. Try to experiment and see just how small an amount of tension you can get away with and still have the pins bind, and the lock open. It's doing absolute wonders for my sense of feel, and everything's opening much easier as a result.

[Kaellman]

Hmm. Have to try that Rowlock. Might improve my raking, which is quite bad at the moment

[toomush2drink]

Rowlock i tihnk your bang on when you say as little as possible. My tension wrench is practically falling out of the lock i use so little sometimes but once you get it it does help. Just remeber sometimes you need more on certain locks, i have an abus discus padlock and a few times ive picked it but because the tension is so light the actually locking bar hasnt moved back until i upped the tension a little. These skills really help with spool pins and you find on certain locks you really get a feel for them as you push them up but only on certain locks.

[ackhoffman]

When it comes to tension, less is often better. Way to go

[psychofish]

Nice. When I was getting started a fellow picker told me to take one of my tension wrenches, and to twist the long end. It allowed me to use more pressure to keep it in the lock, but at the same time it applied very light tension to the lock. I still use it for raking since it's so easy to vary the tension.

[criminalhate]

When it comes to tension, less is often better. Way to go

Holy Necro Batman

[shadow11612]

Wow, as I was about to add a comment, I saw that the OP was from 2005.

Anyway all I was going to add was to try and use tension wrenches with different lengths also. A light touch imparts much different amounts of tension from a wrench 1 1/2 inch long to one 3 or 4 inches in length.

[raimundo]

grip the blade of your tension wrench between the thumb and forefinger, then on the far end of the lever handle, press a feather or the edge of a piece of paper against the lever to see how much leverage you are getting.

Many people who have not tried this have no idea of how much pressure and force is generated by those long levers.