My First Pair of Bogotas

[J.D.]

Thanks for the compliments. Kudos to Ray for the design and instructions. These were fun to make.

The rake works for me on most of my newbie-friendly locks, though a few are quite stubborn. I wish someone would make a video of the "too much coffee" technique so I'd know if I'm doing it correctly.

I have an old Master padlock I got used 20 years ago from a locksmith. It was old even back then. I guess it's a Number 5 judging from the size. The pin springs and the shackle spring are extremely stout. Inserting and turning the key requires more effort than any other lock I've used. It has always been that way, but I shot some silicone spray in to be sure it's adequately lubricated. I've managed to "coffee" it open once and got lucky another time when trying to pick it pin by pin. Lucky because I can't feel what's going on. The pins all require quite a bit of pressure to push even with no torque applied. It's a real bugger for someone new to this.

If I ever get that one conquered the next padlock challenge is an old American Series 50 double wafer. I suppose I'll need to make one of those two pronged torque wrenches.

Before getting too far ahead of myself I need to mount a practice lock and spend some time learning the ropes. One pin, two pins... I'll make some hook picks.

I found some sweeper bristles. Today I used one to make a simple tension wrench. The first fractured when making the 90 degree bend. My second try with pliers slightly farther apart worked ok.

Since I'm thinking of making some curvy "ergonomic" handles I bent some scrap pieces of wiper insert and sweeper bristle to test the water. The insert bent into a fairly small circle without cracking, but the bristle snapped 3 times as I tried to start it into a circle. Maybe my bristles are more brittle than usual. Or the particular one I used was.

Any tips for forming a nice round circle? After a little reading it seems jewelers size rings using a mandrel and some sort of rawhide hammer. The wiper inserts might endure that treatment after being formed roughly to shape with pliers. I think the bristles I have would need to be annealed.

If I get ambitious I might experiment with some of my junkier bristle pieces to see how well I can retemper them after annealing.

[raimundo]

do the pin count on that old master and if the pins do not snap down sharply, you may have a 'too much graphite' situation, some old locks are so full of graphite that it slows everything down, a spray of wd40 then some raking with a papernapkin to wipe the picks often will remove some of this and eventually remove enough of it to make the lock work well again.

[Exodus5000]

I made myself a set of bogotas a while back that work marvelously. I never really understood in intimate terms why they worked so well until recently when I made my schlage 5 pin cut-away. There are two factors that seem to make these picks so good.

1.) Bogota picks make those pins jump like bank owner on black tuesday.

2.) The Bogota pick seems to be shaped so that the peaks touch every other pin. So that you can (for example) have 3 peaks touching the first, third, and fifth pin in a lock, while the valleys allow the second and fourth pins to rest at the lowest possible setting. This kind of spacing allows for all the pins in a lock to be shuffled across all pin depths by inserting the pick in and out and shaking up and down rapidly. This kind of behavior, of rapid jumping across all pin depths, means that eventually you'll get the pins to set perfectly - and it usually doesn't take long.

I highly suggest for anyone who wants to make a set of bogota picks to get a cut-away lock. This way you can more easily measure the length and spacing of your pick.

[J.D.]

I beat the old Master. Now I can open it almost every time, usually quickly.

The trick with this lock is to use a lot of tension. It took me a while to find the right amount. Heavy, but not so heavy that I can't move the pins with a decent push. I don't want to bend my pick. The pins set 4,3,2,1. The tension has to be reduced a hair to set the final pin, but if I ease up a little too much pins 4 or 3 will drop back down.

So far, the half diamond style Bogota has held up well. It seems somewhat tougher than it looks.