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How To: Dragon Tension Wrench

When it comes down to it there is nothing better than manual tools for your Lock pick Set, whether they be retail, homebrew, macgyver style. DIY'ers look here.

How To: Dragon Tension Wrench

Postby CompFX » 31 Mar 2007 23:37

This a guide i have put together to show how to make Steven Hamptons dragon wrench.


Please note this text is intended for lockpicking101 only and I do not give permission for it to be copied to other sites or sold on e-bay in any part or form.


Time it took me: 45 Minutes

Items:
Safety Glasses
Dremel Tool
Cutoff Wheel
Barrel Sanders (Big and small)
Grinder
Putty Knife - Blade min .30" x 3.5" x 1.25"
Caliper (Digital=easier)
Sandpaper
Drill
Center Punch
Wire Cutters
Quench Water
Sharpie Marker
Template of Dragon Tool
Practice & Patients

Template:

Pic 1


Pic 2
Get a 1.5" putty knife. Mine was a brand name 'HYDE'. I choose it over others because of the correct thickness and the fact that the blade was riveted on and there for easier to extract. Drill out the rivits. If they just spin instead of drill out, let them spin and keep pushing down so it creates so much friction that it melts the plastic handle. Do the same thing on the other side.


Pic 3
Pop the handle off and use the wire cutters to cut the rivets off. You sould be left with that.



Pic 4
Now cut out one of the templates. Easier said than done!! Cut right down the middle of the lines. Once that is done, place it on the raw putty knife blade.



Pic 5
Now dab your finger in the quench water and dab it on the template. Get it wet enough that it saturates the paper. This is done so that the paper template does not move and we can trace it.


Pic 6
take the fine (felt tip) end of the sharpie and trace around the outline. Dab any excess water off with a towl. I used the pink shower towel that covers my work bench and it worked great. If the marker gets to wet and quits working, scribble on paper and it will come right back to life.



Pic 7
Take the fat side of the sharpie and use dashed lines to mark the rough cut lines. Leave enough room so that you dont cut into the tool itself. We will take care of the excess later. I forgot to take a picture, so I edited one and drew the lines on there. Cut the blue lines first with the dremel cut off wheel. Once all the big chuncks of material are gone, go and cut the red lines.



Pic 8
Now you should have something like the above.


Pic 9
Now use the grinder to help where it can. With what is left over, either use the cutoff wheel or barrel sander to get the above.


Do not round the edges of the Dragons "Feet" these need to be left sharp as possible so it can grip onto the edges of the radial (tubular) lock. You can round all the other edges and corners except the Dragons Feet!!

Use the digital caliper to get as close as possible to the measurements.

And here is my finished product

Pic 10
Pic 11


As you can see, I still have some fine polishing to do, maybe straiten up a few cuts, but other than cosmetics, its finished.


After doing a little research I figured out what the correct dimensions are suppose to be for radial (tubular) locks and came up with my own dimensions for the Dragon Feet and wings.


Sources:
Steve Hampton - Advanced Lock Picking Secrets
Steve Hampton - Modern High-Security Locks - How to Open Them
Image
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Postby lunchb0x » 1 Apr 2007 1:21

whats so good about this tool?
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Postby PickPick » 1 Apr 2007 3:37

Nice work on the tension wrench.
It's not the tools that open the lock. It's me.
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Postby Shrub » 1 Apr 2007 8:24

Ive heard these arent much good how do you find it?
Last edited by Shrub on 2 Apr 2007 8:36, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby CompFX » 1 Apr 2007 10:25

The head: I would not use it for picking locks where a 'normal' tension wrench would work. It is not comfortable to deal with especially because all of the weight is hanging offset so it tries to roll itself out of the lock all of the time. I have thought about adding teeth to the dragons mouth in hopes it would have a better grip, but I dont think I will be using it that much.

The Feet: Something with the feet needs to be modified as far as length wise.

Small Bore Tubular: When placed on a tubular lock the third foot seem to be a menace as it rubs on the cylendars face not allowing enough of a bite.

Common bore Tubular: When placed on a tubular lock the first foot is now the menace as it rubs on the cylendars face not allowing enough of a bite.

I only have two tubulars to play with so I don't know how the over sized tension part works.

The wings: I think he could have designed that a bit better was well. Move one wing closer to the head and the other closer to the tail and have them leaning toward each other to allow more pick manipulation.

The Tail: I would suggest using the FS tension wrenches for the auto locks. As the tail has the same off center weight problem as the head and if your not extremely carefully the wings will leave a nice scratch on the paint job.
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Postby Shrub » 1 Apr 2007 10:45

So do you think you can mod the tool to work well? do you have plans to?

Youve done a good job with it and an improved CompFX wrench would be nice to see,
Last edited by Shrub on 2 Apr 2007 8:38, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby CompFX » 1 Apr 2007 11:08

I have been toying with the idea of revamping this tool. I like its idea, I just dont like its design. I think that is why this never hit the commercial market.

I'll see if I can whip something up.


CompFX
Image
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Postby Shrub » 1 Apr 2007 11:13

Well if you make one thats useable ill copy it as i also like the idea of the tool rather like the old bike spanners that have loads of socket sizes on them and bits used for a screw driver etc,

Love the concept but not the present design,
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Postby CompFX » 1 Apr 2007 11:59

I was thinking something like this

Image

This is not perfect to scale but close. I will play some more.

Any opinions are welcome.
Image
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Postby Shrub » 1 Apr 2007 12:01

Always use rounded corners,

Maybe if you made it so each 'leg' slid in or out otherwise its not gogin to be as easy on the pocket as a dragon wrench is,
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about using puttyknife

Postby raimundo » 1 Apr 2007 12:05

I was watching that how its made show on discovery channel, and they were making putty knifes, I learned something I had not known, that puttyknifes are made to have a flexible area up the blade from the tip, in other words, its either thinner, or differently tempered, I forgot exactly how they achieved this, in any case if you make anything from these tools, its good to know this, you can test your blade to find the area of flex and design your tools to take advantage of this, remember, its betterif a pick shaft has some flex, rather than inflexible and probably brittle. Metal tempering can be inaccurately adjusted with a torch, but not with reliable and repeatable results, that takes a tempering oven.
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Postby CompFX » 1 Apr 2007 12:40

putty knives are stiff as a quarter at the handle. Depending on the brand and the knife is where the flexibility lies. Some knives will not flex at all. Usually called scrapers and have a angle at the tip like a knife blade. Others are Stiff / Flexible / Ultra flexible. I sued the flexible one as the ultra flexible ones are to weak to be putting tension on. The stiff ones and scrapers are to think.

@shrub, I wouldn't advise putting the dragon in your pocket either.

?? If you had a dragon in your pocket would you then be considered a fire ... never mind... little eyes could be reading.

If the corners were rounded the tool would solely depend on leverage. With sharp corners the tool would be using leverage as well as biting. I dont know, I have yet to make this and probably wont have time today either.
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Postby Eyes_Only » 1 Apr 2007 15:26

I bought that book by steve hampton like 4 years ago. I'm just glad that someone had the guts to actually make one. Looks pretty good too, but the concept of the tool does seem inefficent.
If a lock is a puzzle, then its key is the complete picture
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Postby CompFX » 1 Apr 2007 17:16

The dragon in theory should work on any lock it encounters, but in some (more than most) cases it is more of a hindrance than a help.

Yall are welcome.

If anyone else makes one, please post, I would like to see.
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Postby Shrub » 2 Apr 2007 8:40

By rounded corners i meant where the 'tabs' meet the 'body' otherwise they are likely to tear off, the corners on the tips must of course in most cases remain 90',
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