I broke down and bought new picks

[jmac875]

OK, so I have been working on making my own set of picks, I made a pretty decent set, a few single rakes, a few snakes, two diamonds, and a half circle. But I was having more trouble picking with these then I did before I lost my original set of picks.

I picked up the following:
South Ord- MPXS-20
South Ord- JPXS- 6F
A circular tension tool ( I needed one to work on the automatic key bump project)
Last but not least a cheap plug spinner.

The first thing I popped open was the jack knife set. I have to say I am impressed with the feel and functionality of this set. I expected for it to be clumsy and difficult to pick with, but it turns out that I was doing better with the snake rake on this then the one in my MPXS-20 set. It fits nicely in my hand, and with it on my key ring now, I have a pick set with me all of the time.
Next was the MPXS-20, I liked the variety of picks with this set, although I would have preferred different depth single rakes, instead of all 3 rakes having the same curve on the tip. The case is beautiful and can hold all of the picks it came with as well as my plug spinner (A5-PGS). The selection of tension wrenches is great. I was able to tensor locks varying from a small gun lock pad lock to a Kwickset.
The circular tension wrench I probably could have done without. When I tried using it on some of the cylinders I got from work, it would not fit. I was able to get it to fit the Kwickset, but I did not like the feel. I guess I am just used to the old fashion wrenches. But I plan on playing with it, I am positive once I get a feel for it I will prefer it over the standard wrench. I just wish the tension rods were adjustable.

Well, the only thing that i want and do not yet have is a set of raimundo's picks, witch will be remedied soon.

[unbreakable]

Cool, thanks for the info Jmac


What type of circular tension tool did you buy? I'm looking into getting a spring loaded HPC one- is this the same one you bought?

Unbreakable

[raimundo]

I have not made or used a circular tensor, but there are some lock parts around, the rings that fit around the front of mortise and rim locks, and every time I see a certain one thats laying around, there is a small thought that this would be an excellent base for putting together a circular tensor. I think it would be quite easy to make one, and there are certainly a lot of ways to do it. has anyone made a circular? I think I remember someone saying they did.

[jmac875]

Unbreakable,
The one I got is the bottom of the line non-spring loaded:



But now that I look, I probably would have liked the spring loaded better.

Ray,
I was entertaining the same idea, but I could not figure out how to bore the hole for the two tensors. I was going to use small Allen wrenches for the tensors, and a buffer ring from a computer hard disc drive for the circular part. These buffers are perfect, and if you could mount two of them together, with material the same thickness as the tensor material, you could make it adjustable. If you are interested in seeing some pictures with measurements of these aluminum rings I would be glad to post them. If you think you want to try using them I will ship a few out to you, as I run into these things all of the time.

[jmac875]

Ray,
Here is a link to the thread that has a PDF Guide that melvin2001 made.

http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?t=15789&highlight=circular+tension

Hope it helps in the venture.

[jmac875]

OK, so in my new pick set there are picks that do not have handles. There are a few picks which include the snake rake/hook pick that I like to use, but started bothering my hands. So I looked in some forums and found that some people use heat shrink tubes with success. But since I am in the process of getting a new house and my whole work shop is in boxes God knows where, all I could find was some CAT-5e network cable.

1) I cut lengths of cable 1/2 the size of the handles of my picks and removed the inner wires from the outer plastic tubing.
2) Using a set of computer tweezers and a Zippo lighter, I heated and stretched the outer tubing a little.
3) slipped the length of tube onto the bottom of the pick, and the same on the top. I had to reheat with the Zippo a few times.
4) Trimmed with my leatherman scissors, and reheated with the Zippo and put tooth marks in the handles with my pliers to rough up the grips.

I then took lengths of the inner cable and wrapped it around the midsection of the thinner double sided picks, heated with Zippo, and made tool marks for better grips with pliers.

I know it doesn't look pretty, but it feels great, and if I find a better solution I can easily remove them and start over.

http://www.geocities.com/jmac875/IMG_6319_1.jpg


Sorry about the size of the picture, but I wanted to show the detail.

db edit: Changed IMG tags to URL tags due to large picture.