First picked lock

[Noxious584]

Picked this lock five times. No raking, just lifting individual pins. Is that good for a first time picking with home made (ugly) tools?

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/94/d ... 152qn0.jpg

NOX

[freakparade3]

Good job! You are now an official member of the club that spends way to much money on locks! It's like tattoos, you'll never be happy with just one.

[muskratt]

Good job! You are now an official member of the club that spends way to much money on locks! It's like tattoos, you'll never be happy with just one.

great comparison.

[dboeren]

Nicely done. The next steps are to go out and get yourself some more different locks, and look into getting some more picks.

Be sure to get at least one deadbolt in addition to padlocks, they seem to have a different feel to them. At least the ones I've tried do.

For picks, I started with a 14 piece SouthOrd set. They're not the best, but servicable and you get a lot of picks for a cheap price which will let you see what shapes you like. Later on I'm considering getting a more expensive set like Peterson but that can wait until I develop my skills some more.

[Beyond]

You don't need a 14 piece set.

[poor paperclip picker]

You don't need a 14 piece set.

That is true, I only have 5 or 6 picks, and I only mainly use 2 or 3, mainly the small half diamond, and my rake, occasionally a short hook.

[stran9er]

You don't need a 14 piece set.

That is true, I only have 5 or 6 picks, and I only mainly use 2 or 3, mainly the small half diamond, and my rake, occasionally a short hook.

Oh... Then I have wasted money...

[dboeren]

Agreed. You can get by with probably 2 picks (short hook + half diamond), 1 or 2 rakes, and a couple sizes of torsion wrenches. I didn't realize this before ordering my first set though, which included 10 picks/rakes and 4 torsion wrenches.

I still think it's no bad thing to have a couple of extras to experiment with.

[poor paperclip picker]

You don't need a 14 piece set.

That is true, I only have 5 or 6 picks, and I only mainly use 2 or 3, mainly the small half diamond, and my rake, occasionally a short hook.

Oh... Then I have wasted money...

Not necessarily. I am kind of stubborn, so once I pick several locks with one or two picks, I always use those 2 picks. Since you have more than my 5 piece set, then you can experiment with other picks. Also If your set came with more than one tension wrench that's a good thing too.

There is also the possibility of breaking some picks, therefore you could always use your other ones in your set as backups.

[mcm757207]

I really like how you have the tension wrench bent like that... I've never seen one like it before.

[FFVison]

I bought the SouthOrd 14 piece a while back. Incidentally, it has 4 tension wrenches 9 picks, and 1 broken key extractor. I would advise against using the broken key extractor to try to pick the lock as it might in fact break and get stuck in the keyway and that will just be the definition of irony. Anyway, I don't think it was a waste of money since it gave me an idea of how to use the different types of picks. I typically use my short hook and sometimes my snake rake with whichever tension wrench the situation calls for. A LOT of people like the half diamond pick, but I haven't really gotten a good feel for it yet. I think that, in general, you will probably be using these 3 picks the most, but that doesn't mean that you can't use the others to at least get a feel of how to use them. I found that this set was a good all around set to learn with.

The picks I found to be less than useful were the following:
-The ball and double ball picks - Partially because I don't have any wafer locks, but I also heard that in general, half diamond picks were better for these anyway.
-The half diamond picks (large and small) - again, these might be more useful if I had to pick some wafer locks, but I don't have any to try it out on
-The long hook - This just seems too long, even if I insert the tension wrench into the top of the keyway, the long hook still seems to get caught on the key pins.
-The sawtooth rake - I keep feeling like this has too much of a grip on the key pins and not enough lift to it. I don't use it much because I seem to just be pulling the pins and not really lifting them much.
-W shaped rake (don't know what this is called) - same thing applies here to the sawtooth rake. I don't know if I'm using these properly, but they don't seem to be as useful as you might think.

I do use all of my tension wrenches. The set comes with 2 regular wrenches that are identical, 1 narrower one which comes in handy for either smaller keyways, or keyways that have a wider bottom and you have to put this narrower wrench in the bottom to prevent the tension wrench that you are using from slipping sideways and messing up your tension. And then theres the feathertouch tension wrench. I have used this on a few locks before I really got to know them. This is a great tool for a lock that you don't know exactly what kind of tension to use and you might need to lighten up torque ever so slightly (security pins anyone?).

I do agree that most people might not use the whole set, but at the same time, some people might find uses for ones that I didn't, just as I found some of mine more useful than some other people might have. It's just a matter of which you find useful, and this set is good for helping you find out what is useful to you.

[Proctor]

I have the MPXS-14 they are nice picks actually, they are my first pick set..before these i used hairclips

The only problem i have had with them is that my smallest tension wrench bent rather easily and now its ruined..

Apart from that there pretty decent picks

[Beyond]

Like I always say, everyone has their own method and tools and whatever gets the job done for you is your best way.

[delocking]

I work on the theory that you can never have enough tension wrenches and as picks don't have a use by date on them, picks that come in a set that I don't use now might come in useful in the future

[Wrenchman]

You can never have enough tension wrenches

That is so true!

Is that good for a first time?

Good might not be the correct wording for a newbie, lucky maybe!

The way I see it, opening a master padlock can never certify anybody as
good, if you're a newbie it's luck and if you're an oldie it's too easy.

I love your wrench though!



Wrenchman