First picked locks

[DonPepinos]

Hi there!

I've been intensly browsing this forum for quite a while now and thought I'd make my first post.

A rainy february afternoon I was bored and surfing the net when I tumbled upon the phenomenon of lockpicking. Since I allways have had an interest in genius mechanical inventions, and quite frequently deal with lost keys, I started reading and reading. After reading quite a bit, I went down the basement and pulled out the "locks" box. Made some lockpicks from hacksaw blades, pulled apart a mouse trap for a plug spinner.


My Home brew picks

I started with DB's exercise: repinning a lock (the most right one, an old wilka 5-pin american style lock) with 1, 2, 3 4 and eventually 5 pins and pick it. I used an old Wilka lock which I found lying around, worked quite well.Having more or less succesfully completed the exercice in a couple of days, I found somewhere a 'Vachtette' euro cylinder and tried to pick it.


An oversight of everything: picks, pincet, tension wrench, plug spinner, disassembled vachette lock, picked other side of vachette lock, wilka lock, sawn-off piece of "trelock" eurocylinder

This was way harder than I thought, and only after disassembling the lock after I finally succeded picking it this afternoon, I understood why: My second lock I picked had four security pins. Pretty neat, I thought, and went on picking some padlocks from the box.


The Vachette key with the security and key pins

Close-up of the picked other side of the Vachette lock

I picked a ABUS 65/50 or something, a real cheep three-pin 'Velo' padlock and another one which brand I cannot recall at this time, but which is quite common. That all went nice and easy and it was pleasing to see them pop open again and again.

Well so far this post, just thought I'd share my first lockpicking experiences and try out the macro function of my new camera.

Cheers!
Pepinos

[ghostman]

those are ur first picks ever made?? those are good

[DonPepinos]

yeah, those were my first. thanks!
Well actually I made 3 more but they all broke because I didn't quench enough while grinding them down, causing the metal to become britle (you can see a broken rake pick on the top picture).


another close-up of the picks, you can see they are far from perfect finish, but they're smooth and for now they do the job.

[ghostman]

how did u do the tips? did u hadn fiel them or dremel them if so wat tool did u use fo rthe diamond

[DonPepinos]

bench grinder, dremel, files (lots of them) and sanding paper

patience is the trick, my friend.. just keep sanding and filing with those tiny tiny tools

[ghostman]

yeah i jsut need to get a bench grinder... (you know dad.. sears is having a sale... )

[JackNco]

Ive got to say im impressed. nice work on the picks. u even managed to pick locks with spools with them. well done

[DonPepinos]

well thanks man!

[Knows-Picker]

I like the fact that you have a curved hook. That is something that people usually get after grinding for a while. My first hooks were all straight with only the tip being curved. That looks more like the advanced hook design that falle uses.. Excelent job for the first time. Keep it up and soon the new must have picks will be DonPepinos instead of Falle!

[DonPepinos]

Yeah I liked the hook pin very much. Unfortunatly I just broke it by wiggling too hard, will make another one like it.

I actually wanted to make a hook pin with diamond pick end first, but then adjusted it to this shape, which I quite liked, untill it broke yesterday .
Darn cheepo hacksaw blades

[mercurial]

Yeah I liked the hook pin very much. Unfortunatly I just broke it by wiggling too hard, will make another one like it.

I actually wanted to make a hook pin with diamond pick end first, but then adjusted it to this shape, which I quite liked, untill it broke yesterday .
Darn cheepo hacksaw blades

First, VERY well done! Great picks, and you've certainly done really well learning how to use them so fast!

With respect to hacksaw blades, I have read many members say here that it IS the cheap blades you want to use - the more expensive might not behave as you'd expect them to.

Silicon carbide + bi-metal blades are probably the most common around and these are totally fine for tools.

If you are breaking picks, you are either not quenching them enough (although it looks like you are making them very well & understand the importance of quenching often), or you are using them with too much force - Raimundo calls it the 'prybar picking' method.

If you are sure you are quenching often enough whilst grinding, and you are sure that you are not placing unreasonable force on the picks, but they are still breaking, then this is the point where I would think about trying other hacksaw blades. I would say try another brand of cheap ones.

If you fill in your location, a member may well be able to tell you where specifically to look.

Plumbing snake, street sweeper bristles are also worth looking into & there is heaps of discussion onsite about other sources of metal stock.

...Mark

[DonPepinos]

I'll be searching for the metal sources, but haven't seen any street wipers with steel bristles here (Brussels, Belgium) yet. I haven't checked out the plumbers snake thing yet either.

The store where I bought the hacksaw blades only had one cheep kind, a no-name brand. I asked for steel-carbon ones, but those weren't, they said. They tried to sell me steel-cobalt blades, but since I had to pay the same price for 2 instead of 12 blades, I sticked with the normal ones.

If I quench them enough I think they'll just be fine and I suppose I just good frustrated 'cause the hook was trapped between a set high (in euro cyl.) pin and my tension wrench, so I pulled it too hard.

Thanks alot for the tips and compliments guys!

cheers
DonPepinos