aspiring locksmith

[locksmithhobbyist]

I am a locksmith hobbyist looking to become a full time locksmith. Right now I am looking for some affordable lock cylinders or padlocks with good security pins and possibly milling to test and improve my skills. if anyone could please make some suggestions it would be greatly appreciated.

[Squelchtone]

Welcome to the forum and please fill out your profile so we know if you are in the USA, Canada, UK, Australia, or somewhere else. All of the listed places have different brands of locks available and different stores and online sites such as ebay, craigslist, habitat for humanity, salvation army, savers, kijiji, amazon, etc where you can buy locks. Once we know where you are from, we can make much better recommendations.

[locksmithhobbyist]

I have just updated my location. I am from the United states.

[cledry]

Certainly picking locks is something locksmiths do, but I would say (at least where I work) it is less than 5% of the work, and there are usually alternatives to picking. Lastly most of the locks depending on whether you are residential or commercial will not be difficult to pick because they have security pins but because commercial locks have tighter tolerances.

If you will primarily be concentrating on residential work (I suggest this when starting out) I would buy a Schlage door knob from a big box store and practice picking that. Buy the common residential locks in your area, Defiant, Brinks, Kwikset and practice on these. Newer Kwiset locks have 2 security pins I believe.

Then once you are grounded and comfortable with residential locks you can move to commercial work. Commercial work usually requires you supply things like a COI, W-9 etc. or you won't get paid. Often they only tell you this after you have done the work! There is a lot more liability and potential pitfalls with commercial work.

Good luck.