Hi everyone.......

[cosmo]

Hi everyone, my name's Andrew! I'm 15 and I'm very interested in lock picking. My Dad used to be a lockie and taught me how to pick basic locks at the age of 8. Unfortunatlely he was killed in a motorbike accident when I was 9, and I soon forgot everything about locks which he taught me. I recently discovered the old 5 piece set which he bought for me. I have now started to re-teach myself. At the moment I'm working on a 3 or 4 pin lock. I can rake it easily, I'm just not so hot on manually picking it. It's quite difficult picking this particular lock as it's quite small. I'm looking for a practice lock that I can use. Can I just go out and buy one? How would I actually set it up so that I can pick it? Should I just attach it to an upstanding piece of wood?

[Vincent-XXI]

I started learning on two ERA replacement cylinders, repinned them and worked up from there and plenty of space, should be able to pick them up for 10 pounds, alot cheaper on EBay. Your problem with single pin picking may be the sise but repinning a lock to one or two will be a good starting/refreshing point if your jsut out of practice.

Repinning guide:
viewtopic.php?t=10505

As for holding, padloscks I find are comfortable to hold and pick, replacement cylinders I usually hold surrounded by thumb and middle finger with the index finger applying tension. Other wise you could create a lock board cheaply to hold several cylinders and padlocks from a piece of wood, a third option and my personal choice is a small hobby vice.

[cosmo]

Hey, thanks!