Plug Spinners - Damage?

[Guitar_J]

after finding instructions for making a plug spinner on here, I grabbed a large spring from the store (less than 3 dollars) and used a bit of spare PVC Pipe, a plastic 35mm film can, a screw, and a piece of a wiper blade insert and I had myself a nice little Plug Spinner (It needs refining a bit, but if I paint it up and make a few adjustments it will be nice, and for only 3 dollars and I have enough of the spring left to make another, it is a mighty fine deal!

Here's a pic just incase anyone wants to see


The vertical part in the pic is the part that you wind up, the horizontal part goes into the keyway, wind 2.5 - 3 times, insert into keyway, pull finger off of the windup handle quickly (else it hurts pretty bad) and the plug will be on the other side in no time...

THe thing that I was wondering about though is, it takes about half a turn to get the plug on the other side, however, when I wind this spinner up 2.5 to 3 times and let er' rip.. does that not risk damaging the lock because of the extra force it has behind it?

-Josh

[Eyes_Only]

I dont see how it would damage the lock if you make such a mistake but Im sure it'll be better if you try to keep that slip up to a minimum. I have the dino plug spinner gun, that thing is pretty powerful and Ive spun it around too much once in a while and its never damaged any locks I have. Most likely you'll screw up your plug spinner a lot sooner then the lock. I wouldnt worry too much about it.

[Romstar]

Pretty much what the last guy said.

The worse you could do is kill the spring in the spinner. If there is enough force, you might actually over ride the prings in the lock and cause it to open. It's rare, but it can happen.

Assuming the cylinder you picked is in fact on a door in a locking mechanism. Otherwise, you could just spin it right back around to locked again.

The spinners I used to build originally had this problem because the spring was too heavy.

Anyway, the lighter springs didn't cost as much.

Looks pretty good. Think really hard, and you'll figure out how to make the spinner trigger activated.

Romstar

[frollard]

just a thought from my analytical mindset here at 2am....

make it so theres a catch, paralell to the body, that you can slide in and out (so it either protrudes or not from the business end of your spinner)

now..., wind 3x or whatever, extend your 'stopper' arm, and let er rip. still has force/speed of 3 revs, but only rotates half.

just remember to let the tension off or you might wreck the spring (with 2 winds extra it probably wont affect it noticably for a LONG time, and even if it does, it'll only cost, what 3 bucks?)

my 2 cents. ....goes and makes plug spinner......

[frollard]

springloaded mechanism yet to be added. (not available....3am now)

btw, I LOVE mechanno, I always wondered if it would come in handy...and this is it.





stopper as it were...only allows half rotation.

[Guitar_J]

Romstar:
Yea I was just thinking about that a few minutes ago... I have to make do with what I have here at the house.. which isn't much as far as stuff to make things from (I live in a small apartment with no room to store such goodies :0/ ) so I was looking at a bag of clothespins, I was thinking if I cut the front half of one side off and then fasten it to the tube near the head of the spinner and bend the wind up arm back in an L shape towards the body, the wind up arm would rest against the side of the clothes pin and when I squeeze the clothes pin, it would move the uncut half (that the arm is resting against) down allowing it to spin...

When I was making this, I thought about using an end cap for a PVC Pipe as the spinner head, I could sand down the end the spinner head would be on so it would be able to spin freely, perhaps I could cut a notch in the bottom of the end cap and make a trigger type handle that would have a piece of metal that goes in the notch and when you pull the trigger, the meltal moves down allowing it to spin..

[Romstar]

Ah yes,

If necessity is the mother of invention, challenge is the mother of innovation.

Sounds like you have something to play with.

Romstar

[Ice]

I've never been sure of how plug spinners work. Do they just spin the plug really fast from one side to another so that the pins don't have time to set/drop/whatever?

[lockpickroy]

I've never been sure of how plug spinners work. Do they just spin the plug really fast from one side to another so that the pins don't have time to set/drop/whatever?

yep exactly