Whst Am I Doing Wrong?

[ThousandThugs]

Ok so normally i pick locks with 2 bobby pins and nothing else..but my fingers started to hurt so i bought a southord jacknife and got it today...the problem is that im new to picking with picks and i need some tips....plus id like to know if theirs any security pins in the lock below and etc...o and i suck at raking and snapping...please and thanks for the help in advance...no flamers please

It says 40mm on the bottom

And as you can see it is a Master Lock..SORRY for camera quality

[dougfarre]

http://locksport.com/LSIGuide/lsiguide.pdf

[ThousandThugs]

i appreciate the help but that didn't answer anything i needed

[guest5999]

from what i've heard around the forum, i think that guy has one, maybe two security pins in it. I have one and it's pretty much just like the master #140 except for the materials of the body. Personally, the tolerances on both those locks are so bad that i can pick them in a matter of seconds though there are quite a few posts with people having trouble with the 140. medium tension seems best to me but i'd suggest checking out some of the other posts related to the master #140

[Squelchtone]

As nifty and portable the Jackknife is, that's more of a fun novelty tool, or something to keep in the glove box as an absolute emergency tool. The feed back it gives is minimal compared to normal picks.

If you still have some cash laying around, order a Sourthord 11 piece or 14 piece set and you will be so surprised at how quickly you'll open that padlock. As with any new tool or pick set, it will take some practice, but you will get better tactile feedback.

Before your set comes in the mail, a lot of new pickers tend to use too much tension. think of how easy it is to insert a key and turn it, thats about how much force you want to use. If your fingers have a dent in them from the tension wrench and are turning white, thats too much pressure.


Here's a nice way to tell how much tension you should use:

Get a black CD-R and put in on the edge of a table, so just 1/4 inch of the CD hangs over the edge of the table.

Now, take the finger you use to press the tension wrench, and use that finger to press the part of the CD, hanging over the table, so it just starts to lift off the table. It should lift about a 1/4 inch off the table, and that's how much tension you should be using while pressing on a tension wrench.

let us know how that worked for you.

Squelchtone

[guest5999]

so i was bored and did a bit of looking. this is a master #141. it's a vinyl covered laminated padlock.

i also made a short video of me picking it with the snake rake on my southord jacknife and my new hook from ln21.

that's leno in the background, feel free to ignore that :P



http://www.youtube.com/v/uhekCog174M

[guest5999]

sorry for the double post. youtube has been screwin with me all night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_lnl6wqyNc

[Eyes_Only]

sorry for the double post. youtube has been screwin with me all night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_lnl6wqyNc

Really? Hmmm... I just heard from somewhere else that some of the videos on YouTube carry viruses.

[ThousandThugs]

nice video..ive only seemed to get the masterlock 141 with the feeler pick and the half ball one

[amaze1]

As nifty and portable the Jackknife is, that's more of a fun novelty tool, or something to keep in the glove box as an absolute emergency tool. The feed back it gives is minimal compared to normal picks.

How would you define this feedback? I never understood what it was and im looking to buy a jackknife so im wondering. please explain it.

[bumber]

If Im not mistaken they are like a swiss army knife but with picks like a whole bunch of picks fold out of a knife style handle...imagine picking a lock with the weight and feeling of a pocket knife...with about as much feedback

[amaze1]

I know what a jakknife pick is I just got trouble understanding the minimal feedback it gives

[linuxbz]

@amaze1: Any pick does two very important things. One is to move the pins. The other is to allow you to feel where the pin is, and what kind of push, or resistance, comes from the pin.

That feedback is reduced rapidly by the amount of mass in the pick, so a large, heavy handle will give relatively less feedback. I haven't ever used a jacknife style pick, but I would think it would be much more difficult to feel small differences in the tiny forces from the pin springs.

[Trip Doctor]

I hope I'm not the only one who got Eyes' joke, lol.

Try being a little more subtle with your picks than you would with bobby pins. I also support squelchtone's advice. In fact, if you don't want to go a bit cheap, you can even get the 5 pick set, that should be enough to start you out.

[le.nutzman]

Picking with improvised tools should probably be your last resort. Yea, it's fun to say you picked a lock with just a bobby pin and what not, but unless you're really understanding what's going on within the lock, correctly interpreting the feedback from the pick, unless you're really just that good, then the bobby pin picking is little more on the luck side. Now i'm not saying that you can't pick locks with bobby pins, because you can. Hell I've even done it a time or two, but when it really matters, you're going to want to get the right tools.

I have to concur with the previous statements about the Jackknife lockpick set. Something designed like a swiss army knife is more for show. Yeah, it's an improvement from the Bobby pins, but as previously stated, the bulky handle kills whatever feedback you could get from the lock.

So you want tips and advice how to start picking with real lock picks, for starters, go to the top of the pick-fu forum and read through the exercise that DB posted. If you come back and say that didn't help you or give you the answers you need to pick a lock, there's no other reason to ask for help because if you want to learn how to pick a lock, you'll understand the reason why I directed you back to that exercise to begin with. Here's the link: viewtopic.php?t=10677

If reading the LSI guide to lockpicking didn't help, then I suggest you read the MIT guide as well, and then, if you still believe that you recieved absolutely no knowledge or help on how to pick locks, I wouldn't bother asking anymore, between the three references provided alone there is more than enough to get even the newest hobbyist a basic understand on how to pick locks.