What brand of pick do yo use for?

[Jenova]

i have Southord set @ home and HPC @ work
dont mind either hey
probley prefer HPC nice strong handels :D:D
their tension wrenchs arnt that special

[_Ethereal_]

I agree, HPC's tensioners are shit, i prefer a stiffere materieal such as street sweeper bristle

[omelet]

pick makers should put a small curve between the ball and the neck of ball picks, since there is a stress concentration in the material where you have sharp corners. I am really surprised that this practice is so common since it is basic Strength of Materials. You may actually be able to improve the strength of these picks by rounding the sharpness out, as long as you dont take away too much material, but I am not sure if it will have an impact on performance...

[raimundo]

Have you noticed on chocolate bars that the material is built like an ingot, with squares separated by grooves, this is supposed to make it easy to break off at the line, it actually dosent work on chocolate bars, but on metal, when there is a scored line, you can start a fracture there. also, if there is a great difference in strengh where the thick part is long and the thin part is very short, all bending will concentrate at the thin part and quickly break it off. it is better if pick shafts taper slightly to the tip of the pick, with no narrow spots that would concentrate all bending, and no cuts or score marks that could begin a fracture.

[omelet]

I figured i'd add a little more to it since you brought up some good points:

It would be ideal if all pick shapes could be nicely tapered that way, but clearly some people's tastes include ball and diamond picks. If they like using ball picks then they are using an inherently weaker design (in terms of fatigue life and yield strength), so I was just making a small suggestion to improve or modify their picks so that they might not fail so quickly.

This image illustrates well how the stress is concentrated at a sharp notch such as encountered with ball picks:
http://www.materialsengineer.com/CA-Stress-Concentration.htm

even if the entire neck of the pick were thinner but a continuous shape (as it could be by filleting the corner near the ball), eliminating this stress concentration could make the pick stronger and less likely to fail by fatigue.

[scampdog]

learn how to make your own picks,apart from developing a skill,you will get a lot of satisfaction when you open your first lock using them,you will also be able to improvise, and make that one pick which opens a lock that all shop bought's have failed on.

[stalinisthacker]

I use my homemade ones.

[LockNewbie21]

I personally think the best approach especailly if your starting is to get a medium sized pick set, any brand you choose, then keep you favorites then take the ones you cant pop a one pin kwickset with and modify the size edge type add something here and here, having the market standard picks are good to work from when making your own but learning to make and modify is where its at. I have a pick that was pretty good, but i mimicked it then added about a half a milimeter gap between peaks and it pops all master locks and simple 4 pins with like raking and such, sometimes the smallest adjustment will make it a killer pick.


Andy

[youngjiggy53]

I bought a nice strong 20 piece pick set from lockpickshop, if some one were to ask me what brand they were, what would i say?

Thanks

[LockNewbie21]

south ord probobly.. mine are strong and havent broke one yet



Andy

[lockedin]

yeah, I wouldn't be too quick to knock Southord. I've had them for years, and whenever one breaks I just order one from the site for under $3. Very convenient and cheap, especially as a college student.

[LockNewbie21]

Amen to that notion, i am guessing when buying a kit you payign mostly for the case becuase there really expensive like up to 20 30 $ a pop, as the picks are only a 1.50, but there good licks and take a beating from me


Andy

[youngjiggy53]

Well in that case, I got my case with my MPXS-20 for only $30 becuase i got a twenty piece set for only $44.95 and at 1.50 a pick my picks would cost 30$.... javascript:emoticon(':)')
Smile

[youngjiggy53]

My mistake, the case for only 15$ the picks would be 30$ at 1.50 each......20 pick set for 44.95

[Edgaro55]

eh.... i paid 20 dollars for a dremel off ebay ( sniped an amazing new 400 luckily) and 5 for 1/4" Plumbing snake at lowes along with a file, and i've made and sold hundreds of great picks. I've never had anything to compare them with, since i've never had any retail picks, but they are amazing : particularly the small diamonds.