lubricating before picking

[drummond52]

I know this has probably been covered before, I was picking a yale yesterday and the pins were real tight, what do most use to lub a lock before picking. Thanks for any help..........drummond

[freakparade3]

Oh the things I could say in response to this question................... I'm gonna try being serious for once though.

I generally use brake cleaner to clean them out, it evaporates quickly. Then I use a silicone based lubricant to loosen them up. The spray goes in wet and dries quickly without gumming up the lock.

[drummond52]

Oh the things I could say in response to this question................... I'm gonna try being serious for once though.
I generally use brake cleaner to clean them out, it evaporates quickly. Then I use a silicone based lubricant to loosen them up. The spray goes in wet and dries quickly without gumming up the lock.

freakparade3, I am a bit lost to the first part of your answer. but if its what I think then I am Sorry for asking such a stupid question , But thanks for replying anyway, now I have a method to try..........drummond

[cryptocat]

I think he'd usually make a lewd joke involving alcohol and a trip to the sex shop to get the lock lubed up. So I'll make the lewd remark.

Be prepared to clean your locks a lot, since any liquid in them will catch all sorts of grit and dirt. I very lightly oiled one of my cores and within a few days I had some black sludge in there. I think a bath in isopropanol or acetone is in order...

[drummond52]

I think he'd usually make a lewd joke involving alcohol and a trip to the sex shop to get the lock lubed up. So I'll make the lewd remark.

Be prepared to clean your locks a lot, since any liquid in them will catch all sorts of grit and dirt. I very lightly oiled one of my cores and within a few days I had some black sludge in there. I think a bath in isopropanol or acetone is in order...

Could be that he is refering to what you say. My main question cryptocat is what most peps do to lub when they first approach a lock they want to pick, as the pins in some locks are pretty sticky. Thanks......drummond

[Engineer]

Truthfully, it depends on what I need to do with the lock.

I have some WD40 and some similar (3-In-1) spray oil, but it also contains Teflon (but is more expensive).

If I only have to pick the lock to gain entry to a sealed house to change the locks for the new owner or something, I use the WD40. Over time it dries out and tends to gum the lock up again, so I wouldn't use it unless you are changing the lock.

If the lock is in a really bad way, you are going to have to flush it with carburettor cleaner or something similar - I got some spray degreaser, but on using it, it's just a thin oil, a bit like WD40 actually, but probably not as good! Sorry, but I NEVER expected a degreaser spray to be oily

So now that gets used for flushing a really gunky lock, prior to picking and then a really good spray of the teflonised oil to flush that out and leave a good oily coating inside, that won't glue up the lock again as it dries out over the next couple of months or so.

Well, it seems to work for me! There are "proper" products made especially for the job, but I cannot seem to find a stockist that has them at a good price, so I use the things I can find and it seems to work out OK for me so far with no call-backs.

[freakparade3]

Yes, my first thought was to reply with a crude sexual reference. I'm trying to be nicer though.

This thread does remind me of a joke though.

What should you do if your girlfriend starts smoking? Slow down and use a lubricant.

[cryptocat]

My main question cryptocat is what most peps do to lub when they first approach a lock they want to pick, as the pins in some locks are pretty sticky. Thanks......drummond

I suppose the usual suggestion would be to use less tension and just push the pins up and down. Maybe you've just got heavy springs? Failing that, I'd try just flushing it out with some sort of solvent (methyl hydrate, rubbing alcohol, acetone) to get the crud out before adding more stuff.

I haven't tried brake cleaner - I hear it can be pretty nasty stuff. Cleaning a lock with a gentler solvent seems safer to be doing in the house.

[raimundo]

Naptha, also called lighter fluid, can loosen up gunk, and it quickly evaporates leaving the gunk in new positions, usually more copacetic with picking. While the gunk is loose, its good to move anything that you can, such as the pins, keep em moving.
Lube can be an aid to picking in some instances. too much lube can be a problem though. Especially if it was applied years before you got there.
I was doing a lockout for a friend at a remote location, the lock was unpickable and it turned out that it was absolutely full of graphite, I used a sweeper bristle and some motor oil straight off the dipstick to swab out the lock, every time it came out black I wiped it off on a piece of napkin and did it again, eventually the lock got pickable.

[drummond52]

Thanks for the good suggestion, Raimundo thats very similar to what I was experiencing with the yale lock, all I had was WD40 and I know I have read against WD40 especially where there can be a lot of dust, and thats the problem we have here.
So basically anything that evaporates fast, should a person use a
Synthetic Lubricant then or just leave alone......................drummond

[Engineer]

You have set me off thinking now Raimundo, wouldn't a stiff-bristled lock brush for cleaning out inside keyways be a good idea?

My first thought was a toothbrush, but looking around at then, each column on the ones I can see are wider than a keyway unfortunately.

My next thought was my little brass-bristled brush, but that is even thicker than the toothbrushes. I did come across my little rotary brush though. It is really just nylon bristles trapped between two thin washers and that gave me the idea of say a 1/4" wide strip of thin steel folded in half lengthways and with some bristles trapped in the end 1" or so.

Sadly, keyways are often just too restricted even for this. I could work the bristles in (just about), but only the widest keyways could get their pins scrubbed like teeth as there was just too much friction to move the brush in and out.

My next thought was pressure water-jetting the muck out, but that could fill a door with water and cause more damage than you solve. Then I rememebred something I saw on one of thouse late-night "infomercials" (usually no good), but this seemed one of the better ideas sold on there and is now sold all over the place, by lots of respectable companies, so I guess it does work?

http://www.go-electrical.co.uk/view/area/Catalog/section/Details/for/ProductOption/ref/5703?rrrrt=5

Now sadly I don't have a steam cleaner to try the idea out on, but even if you don't have a suitable attachment with a cleaner, you should be able to make one fairly easily.

It worked well enough during the second World War - Steaming the explosives out of bombs and steaming works a treat on engine oil contamination, so it should also be perfect for steaming out gunky locks, prior to re-oiling and picking?

You could try making your own steam boiler, perhaps out of an electric kettle, but I strongly advise no-one tries it, unless you are used to working with live steam, with slightest blockage or boil-over of water into the pipe can cause a very nasty mess of scalding water and steam.

As I've no way of testing this for real myself, I wondered what others thought of this "thought-experiment" idea?

[patrick_lpk]

what about gun cleaning brush for really small caliber?

[Engineer]

I've only got shotgun brushes and the twisted wires are too thick. I'm not too sure about smaller calibre guns. I know the Armed Forces use rods and a small rag pushed/pulled through the barrel, but you would think enthuasts would would have something similar but smaller wouldn't you?

That's actually a good idea - Thank you. Something like a .303 or .44 at most would have done. I know the bristles go in all directions, but I think they would all group together as it was pushed in and pulled out again.

They also have similar brushes for cleaning test tubes, I wonder if the wire is any thinner on them?

[cryptocat]

try pipe-cleaners. something like a 0.65mm wire core with short soft bristles, and the whole thing is about 3mm wide. available at most craft shops.

I just cleaned my cores - isopropanol (rubbing alcohol) works really well. They've been kept inside, in a closed container most of their short life. Attached is a photo of the crud that came out. For reference, the caliper is set to 10.00mm. The alcohol has this nasty yellow/brown tint too.

I suppose there are some forensic implications... what sort of crud is generated by regular use, and how much picking is required to create a fingerprint of a picked lock?

[Engineer]

That's a remarkable picture - I've never collected the stuff that come out of an old lock before, but all that brass is a bit worrying when you see it like that. It is all going to be comming from your keys and to a lesser extent, from the pins. It is actually a good reminder why locks should be rekeyed sometimes with all that wear going on.

The yellow will dried oil and grease, plus tarnish from the brass.

Thanks for that picture, it is a good one as I've never seen anyone collect the "evidence" before!