making a tubular lock pick?

[Guesss]

I have looked around the site and haven't come across a way to make a tubular pick. I know there are ways out there to defeat some kinds of tubular locks out there, with toilet paper rolls, bic pens...

Does anyone have directions for building one similar to the ones that you would buy. i would much rather build one then buy one both for monitary reasons and because this is a hobby of mine not a job so i don't care what my tools look like.

Any help would be muchly appreciated.

[kennylt]

i havnt seen a "how to" either (havnt searched too )
and never used this cind of pick but here is an idea for this:
http://img56.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img56&im ... nas6qo.png
it should work ... i think

[Guesss]

interesting concept... not exacly sure how this will work.. the concept is there but the diagraham is severly lacking and it is a good point about the tension. It really got my gears turning though. Ideas are coming to me as i type. thanx for the help with the thought process.. a sparck can start a fire

[raimundo]

get a tubular key cut to the eighth depth, or the seventh depth if your locksmith dosent recognize the eighth depth, use jewelers hard silver solder, and a white paste flux, (the special liquid jewelers fluxes won't work on steel. oh and by the way, wash the steel with detergent and flush liberally with hot water because the solder will not adhere to any of the oil that is part of its production processe.) Solder the key notch pickup from the outside with a chip of solder about as small as a fingernail paring from your little finger. (too much solder will get to the inside of the barrel and make it impossible to put this in the notch.) Use chips of solder the size of a thumb clipping for the next part, solder the bow of the key at the end of the barrel to the barrel, (it is press fit on and you will be cutting away parts of it. so it must be soldered on.)
Do both of these soldering operations in one go under the torch, the paste flux will boil a little soon after the torch hits, as soon as the boiling stops, heat the tip of a needle, you might want a wine bottle cork handle on this long needle, and stick the hot needle into your solder chip with a little brush flame from the torch, when the solder chip is adhered to the needle, put just a tiny bit of water on it and touch it to the key on the right spot where the paste flux is. the water will boil away and the solder will be glued in the right place by the flux, the torch will help to separate the needle and the chip of solder, (note, only put the flux on that part of the key where you want solder to flow. DO NOt put flux all over everything.)
white paste flux can be a commercial product for soldering, or you can use boric acid and water to make your own paste, or even 20 mule team borax for laundry if thats still around. Boric acid is a powder that you can buy at the drugstore. (kills foot fungus, but not all foot powders are pure boric acid.)
Anyway, you have used your common propane torch to heat the key red,(you are using an all steel key, brass will not make a good pick) you watch the solder flow to the right areas, leading it there with the heat of the torch that it will follow. and then get the torch off the piece before you boil the solder too much.
Wait for this to cool, now put the bow of the key in a bench vise, and using needle files, start with a triangular file and make a cut straight back from the #1 or #7 place to the end of the keybarrel. this triangular file groove is important because it sets the center for other files to follow, next, open up this groove with the rattail round needle file. flip the key over and do the #3 and #5 cuts.
cut a round groove into the benchtop or a board and use a c clamp to hold the bow of the key to do the #2 and #6 cuts with triangular and round rattail file. now finish the grooves with the back edge of a knife file. this means that the sides of your cut will be perpendicular to the bottom of the cut. Do not be fooled into thinking that it can be done with a bar file with its apparent 90 degree edges, because you are using a hand tool and it will rock back and forth a bit during the work, so you use the back edge of the knife file to compensate.
finish the 123 567 cuts this way, then clamp the key bow in a vise and cut away the part of the key bow that is straight back from the #4 cut. use a hacksaw blade for the mass wasting then finish with a large flat file.
now make the #4 cut all the way to the back of the key bow.
next, cut away the outer parts of the key bow that pick up the keyway notch halfway back into the bow of the key.
put a nice finish on this with the flat file.
inspect the grooves, make sure that all are equally deep to eyeball inspection. grooves straight and not splayed from file drift. (you should probably get two or more keys cut to the eighth depth to begin with, so you can make better ones after the first try. so that you can start over if something gets screwed up. and you could take them all through the process at the same time since practice makes perfect and all the practice can be done in a shorter time this way.l
Next, you want to make a handle and round shaft at the end of the metal barrel of the key, Use fimo heat setting plastic from an art supply store, and after heat setting it let it cure for three days. put this stuff on thicker than the area that you want to cover, and use a file to cut down to surface when you are ready to finish the pick.
make sliders out of hair pins, use the fold at the back of the hairpin as the fingersetting piece, and cut the wavy part off about a quarter inch below this, make all seven sliders the same length, leave room on the barrel of the pick for these sliders to move the length of an eight cut on the front of the pick, you will have to thin the slides with a fine flat file and then sande them to reduce friction from the keyway. Use black O rings from the plumbing department of your hardware store to hold them on the pick barrel. At "locksports group at yahoo.com" (yahoo groups) you can see a picture of such a pick on a photograph in the photo files under either pick tools or locks, (theres a version of the photo in both places, one or the other will give you a view of the pick. ) its a photo entitled bohnsey the cat and the pick lays toward the bottom of the photo beneath the cover of the book 'the art of manipulation"

[Guesss]

wow... way to technical for me. Besides i don't have the money to aford all that stuff. thank you though i am sure it will help people more capable then I.are there any other ideas out there?

[digital_blue]

Well raimundo, your post was not wasted... as I copy paste for a later day. Very informative, thank you!

db

[Guesss]

im sorry if i made it sound like it was a waste... i didn't mean that at all as i too copy and pasted your post in my ever widening document of pick and accessory building knowledge. i have it with the crest electric pic which i have yet to build but am looking forward to trying. Thank you again for your post i am just not quite ready for you expertiese yet

[digital_blue]

Sorry, Guesss... that wasn't meant as a shot.

[Guesss]

no worries DB... after i reread it, it did kindof sound like that so it gave me a good chance to clarify what i meant. Like i always say... "any knowledge is good knowledge, it is sometimes just not always applicable"

[Guesss]

i havnt seen a "how to" either (havnt searched too )
and never used this cind of pick but here is an idea for this:
http://img56.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img56&im ... nas6qo.png
it should work ... i think

so i have been putting a lot of thought into this because it seems to me that thir really could work but the idea seemed to be flawed... first off it doesn't have a tension device with it. second it seems like a one time to very few time use type of deal because of the cork wearing out and getting big holes in it. either front to back from getting the right depths and side to side from turing the lock. I think all the problems with this has to do with the tension actually.

so here is the plan i have been thinking (sorry i have not drawn up any diagrams yet but i will explain to the best of my ability)

first take the cork like in the diagram and get the correct diameter of your circle. I believe that a bick pen would work for an imprint. (i could be wrong about that though) You would have to already have the pins either 7 or 8 which ever you would like to make.. this is where it would be convenient to have a tubular key cause that would work really well for the circle impressioning as well as the pin spacing. After you get the spacing correct slide the pins into the cork just far enough for you to be able to be able to level the pins and have them far enough into the lock to get the correct depths for the key. All of this has basically been what was in the previous diagrams witha slight modification. The next part has to do with the tension problem. Simple but functional solution...

for the tension part take some thing like a "gates steel hose clamp" and put tha around the outside of the cork... with this around there you will be able to controll the tension one the tines comming out of the end of the cork. i also think that this will be able to stop the wear and tare on the cork making them have at least a little long jevity. Also with this it would be better to have some sort of thumb screw in there other then a screw sothat you wouldn't have to have a screw driver with you to thighten it way down but none the less i think that this idea will work. I haven't tested it yet it is still on paper and in my head but i am pretty confident it will work.

please let me know everyones thoughts on this


Link about the hose clamps cause i am not exactly sure how to explain them.
http://www.gates.com/europe/file_displa ... CLAMPS.pdf
Link to the previous cork diagram
http://img56.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img56&im ... nas6qo.png

[raimundo]

common ace tubular are approximately 9mm or .38cal cartridge diameter, there are also one oversize, marked 136L or sometimes 137L on the key, and there are several smaller diameters, 136S is common, but there are smallers ones, kryptonite uses them. Look for a papermate cheap plastic clicker pen, with a black rubber grip, the one you are looking for has a little rim on the top of the clicker if I remember it right. put the point of the pen on a table, and pull down on the rubber grip, it will have to stretch over a rim to be pulled down, but as soon as you can see the inside of the rubber grip, look for grooves, eight of them, on the inside diameter of the rubber grip. This will confirm that you have the right pen. you will build an ace pic with the pen barrel cut back to that rim and eight stiff wires inside those grooves. you may want to look for an afro comb with small wires to make these. Next you will want to find the small size ace that fits the pick, look amoung the recent krytonites. Papermate pens have two little hearts on the plastic pocket clip.

[omelet]

raimundo, seems you have done this before?

[raimundo]

Noticed yesterday after posting that papermate makes a variety of plastic clicker pens with rubber grips, the one with the rim on top of the clicker button is called dynagrip, and has about a two inch long rubber grip, longer than the other one I saw yesterday, they also make this with advertizing on the barrel, the clicker stillhas the rim, but it dosent say dynagrip on the side.

[biggbabysweetz1]

now im no expert and im a begginer but this forum has really sparked an interest in locking mechanisms and how they work (i also learn quick )
now from what i gather a standard tubular lock when picked conventionaly will go only an eigth of a turn before relocking AKA 45 degrees. now in all reality, as ive seen that kryptonite locks can be defeated with a bic, and ive heard bic is about the right size for the slot. so couldnt you pick it manually - turn the mechanism 1/16 of a turn AKA 22.5 degrees - and shove a bic in there and make an impression? like i said im no expert but that was my 2 cents on the issue

[raimundo]

bigbikes idea about using a bic to impression the ace lock after picking it sounds like it would work, you must be very careful while forcing the bic straight down into the keyway that you do not accidentally relock it by causing it to turn. Once the bic is forced to the bottom of the keyway, a little side to side motion towards all the differnt points of the compass will tend to help the impressions set into the plastic, if done well, you could almost have a reusable plastic key that would be good for a few repeat openings I think. If anyone experiments with this, let us know.