How to make your own driver pins

[mikus]

Since its impossible for me to get any security pins where i live (lockpicking is illegal and noone will sell them to me) and getting them from locks may be expensive and you may not get the ones you want I decided to make my own pins the way i want. It is pretty easy however it requires some manual skills. As for safety threw the process i didnt bother but you can use some gloves or whatever you need to feel safe Basicly what we are going to do is create a simple lathe.

Stuff you will need:

-Calipers
-Wire of desired thickness - dissasemble your lock and measure the thickness of your driver pin with calipers
-Files- one with bigger flat side and few smaller ones (preferably square and triangle one)
-Bench drill (you can also use dremel or a regular drill but you will need someone to hold it for you)
-Some pilers and cutters
-Wet sanding paper - 350-600 grit and a piece of cloth (both optional)

First of all cut a piece of wire so it will fit into your drill, and set it so you have around 2cm tip sticking out of it . Set the drill to 700-800 rotations and turn it on.



Take your bigger file, put it under the tip and press it up against the wire, you want to make the tip flat, after that get fine file or sanding paper, refine the tip and make a little chamfer on the edge.



Take calipers and measure length of your pin, block the calipers and make a mark on the pin then improve the mark with the edge of triangle file (make a little serration). This way you wont blur the mark while shaping the pins.



Get your small files and begin to shape the pins, use triangle one to make serrations and square for spools. Apply your file to the wire with one hand on the handle and second one on the tip, rest your thumb on the wire so you will get better stability of the file. Give free rein to the shape. When shaping the pin try to hold the file perpendicular to wire, it will prevent it from sliding.



After you are pleasured with the shape, get sanding paper and gently put it against the wire then do the same with cloth for some polish (you may skip that step if you didnt scratch the pin). The coolant we use for drilling doesnt look very atractively...



Turn off the drill, cut off the pin just above the serration we did with cutters and grab the pin with calipers. Use your file to grind the excess of the material untill you meet the seration then smooth it out a little with finer file. Serration we did should give us nice chamfer, if it didnt improve it.




By now you should be done with your pin, feel free to post your results!

[BbGenesis]

That's a really cool idea, I wouldn't have thought of that. Have you tried them in a lock yet? How well do they move?

[mikus]

Cant really tell, they all are a lot harder to pick than standard ones but i dont have comparison to any branded security pins. They gave a whole new life to my 5 pin lock, it took me few seconds to open it before, now few minutes is not enough

[MBI]

Nice looking work.

[johnb007]

Wow, that's some serious dedication and some great innovation!

[bembel]

Very nice results.

[fgarci03]

Amazing!
Absolutely loved 'em! What a nice tutorial you got there dude

Tell me something, how long you take, on average, for each pin?
I would like to make a nice assortment for me if I find the time and/or tools for the job!

Congratulations, they look pretty evil!

[kmh]

Beautiful work but, make sure you wear a mask at least for safety, brass does often contain a small amount of lead.

[C locked]

Nice attempt. If you are trying to replicate a commercial spool. your spool needs to have the top and bottom of the "I" Shape much thinner. About .6mm. About the thickness of a 3 master pin. At least that has been my experience of commercal spools.
...for a simple security driver pin. Take a 1/8 or similar machine thread screw. Thin it down to the diameter of your pin chamber. Usually only removes half the thread. Cut off 4mm. Sand the top and bottom.
Viola. A cheap and dirty security driver pin.

[C locked]

...in all that i don't think i congratulated you on your efforts... Congratulations.

[spoonzor]

very cool. Thanks for posting.

It might be cheaper for me to buy the needed tools to replicate this instead of buying new locks all the time.

[Squelchtone]

Very nice work!

[mikus]

IT takes me around 10 minutes for each pin, maybe less now. There is one more tip i forgot to write about, when shaping the pin try to hold the file perpendicular to the wire it will prevent it from sliding (can we edit that in?)

[beancurd]

Absolute genius! Great post.

[Altashot]

Nice, a vertical lathe.

M.