CanadianGuy wrote:I've seen a lot of threads about how to take apart locks and then put them back together but I don't get why you need to know how to do this. Is it mostly so that you can understand what's going on inside the lock while you are picking it? And how important is it to learn how to do this?
Well, heres a few reasons,
1. So you can remove pin stacks. This is mostly done for beginners learning how to pick, as detailed in DB's exercises.
2.So you can change the pinning of a lock, or add or remove security pins. This is done either to make the lock easier or harder to pick.
3.As you said, this is a good way to find out how locks work, and what youre actually dealing with (physically holding a pin as opposed to reading about them and never seeing them, or to find out if a lock has security pins, etc).
4.If you take apart a lock, you can re-pin it to work with any key that fits the lock, so you can have multiple locks work with one key.
This is something you will probabley want to learn at one time or another, but its not absolutley necessary. I would personally learn how to disassemble the locks you own.
If youre trainging to become a locksmith, learning this skill is a must.
Hope this helps.