King and Queen

[Kheops]

I recently made myself a set of king and queen picks. I made them rather hastily, mainly to test the principle of the picks, before putting in many hours to make something really perfect. They are however pretty well made and pretty close to the template I used.



I must say that, for the time being, I am not very impressed. I haven't been able to find a great deal of information on King and Queen picks, and therefore haven't been able to get much information on the lifting technique they implement. However, so far, they are not as good as my bogota rakes, nor my Sparrows worm rake.

Don't get me wrong, they work, sometimes...

I've tried them on some cheapo "Wren Bird" night latch locks I had. These have decent bitting, and are based on Yale keyways, Y1 / 999, however they have really sloppy tolerances. My picks work fairly well on these locks.

I also tried them out on some custom pinned locks, different brands, different bittings, and have only had some modest success. I find I have more success with Bogotas or worms...

Any one out there had more success with these picks?

I also saw that Sparrows now has the rook and knight rakes, which resemble the king and queen but with slightly more agressive bitting. Anyone try these?

[zeke79]

That is just the nature of this style of pick. You will find locks that fall open instantly and others will seem to never open. These work along the same principle as the HPC computer generated picks. If you want to go through several picks rocking them in different directions for a minute or so each then by all means do so as it can be fun using a new technique. If however your main goal is to just open the lock then I would stick to the basics.

[pickmonger]

An old link discusses this pickset http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16595

This is the instruction manual for the King and Queen Pick .http://www.mediafire.com/view/9c9bmwbpcveaplw/LockPickDesign&Engineering.pdf.

Is shows how its made and some of the theory.


I wrote to the publisher of this document and they stated that this document was in the public domain a free to be shared.

Apparently it was written by the US Government and as such was in the public domain.

[Jacob Morgan]

Regarding the document that pickmonger linked to, it was published by Paladin Press back in the early 1990's as The Lock Pick Design Manual. It read as though it was a reprint of some notes that some government person wrote when they interviewed someone (from Europe?) who had developed a unique method of lock picking. The writer implied that surreptitious entry was what his agency (or department, or whatever) was interested in.

[kwoswalt99-]

An old link discusses this pickset http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16595

Here's an even older one, and you started it! http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2387
Not sure how useful it will be now though, most of the pics are gone.