Letter Openers?

by **occulum** » 31 Mar 2007 22:54

Hey guys, this is my first post, and im still new to lockpicking.
While roaming my office for materials that would be plausible for picks and
a tension wrench, i came across a letter opener.
I think this would be a great material, but what do i know?
What do you guys think?

Something such as
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a281/ ... _353w_.jpg
premade handles for the win

by **occulum** » 31 Mar 2007 22:57

crap sorry i meant to put this in Lockpicks - Manual

by **Tygart** » 1 Apr 2007 1:35

Those look like some really nice letter openers..

Not too sure but they look kinda thick. I don't see why you can't make picks out of them, I am not too sure if they would make good wrench miturial..

by **Shrub** » 1 Apr 2007 8:25

They will be too thick to use im afraid,

They are also likely to be a bad material to use,

If your looking around the home maybe things like a nail file would be better for you,

by **SlingsVaqueros** » 1 Apr 2007 12:33

Most letter-openers are cast from some cheap, almost pewter-like, metal. I think these would be very pretty, very broken picks in short order. If you want to use those picks to look nice, I woulds make my own picks, or cut the heads off of existing picks, and drill into the handles and mount them. That way you can have quality picks in pretty handles.

On a personal note; I prefer my picks as light as possible so I can get a lot of feed-back form the lock. I have seen a lot of very professional and attractive picks on this site and around the web, but they all look kind of bulky and I wonder if it reduces the feed-back while picking. I would think that the larger the handles, the more the bulk insulates the vibrations that travel up the pick to your fingers, therefore; less feed-back.

You would have some sexy looking picks though...

by **pauly003** » 2 Apr 2007 9:37

Hmmmmm, custom made wooden handles...Interesting idea.

by **CompFX** » 3 Apr 2007 21:15

The letter openers are surly gold plated. If you choose to grind the letter openers down to a pick, there wont be a speck of gold left on there. It would turn out rather tacky. If the letter openers have any bit of flex in the blade, are rather heavy, and vibrate when you bounce the blade on a desk, then they are probably made from steel. If you try to flex the blade and it breaks off, the handle is heavier than the blade, or if you bounce them on something and have no reverberation then they are a porous metal like pot metal. Porous metal will not work for picks.

A possibly easy way to check would be to pull the blade out of the handle and look at the unfinished end. If even the end of the blade wedged in the handle has the gold plating, take a file (pippin file) and draw it across part of the blade that is hidden in the handle as if it is the wrong material, at least you still have a decent looking letter opener.

Your best bet would be to spend the $3 bucks and get a hacksaw blade, or spend a few more dollars and get a commercial pick set. Even a 5 piece set (about $20) would be good to start off with.

CompFX

by **bumber** » 5 Apr 2007 0:57

I have made pick handles out of nice woods before all i did was glue four pieses of the wood like |=| just small enough to fit the pick in between and cut on the handle of the pick like <<<< so when i put (carefully force) it in it stays forever also instead of glue you could brad, dowel or whatever the picese together:) PM me for more details or Ideas

Letter Openers?

Letter Openers?

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