impovising

[phippoD]

i was curious to no what type of things people have used as a pick or a tention wrench???

-phippoD-

[Safety0ff]

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17318

I've used a packing stapple bent using pliers.

[raimundo]

Most improvised picks are crap, but the pocket clip off some plastic ballpoints are in fact, not bad tensors.

[Engineer]

Improvised tools are often good for only one or two uses.

I've used the plastic sides from CD cases etc. as I've posted previously. (You will need to go gently though ewith them, depending on the plastic).

There is also the famous video of a banana being used to pick a lock...

An amazing number of things can be used in extemis, but it will usually take longer to pick the lock as well as having to fashion some sort of pick from the material of course. I once spent a slack afternoon with a wafer padlock that was easy to pick, just looking around for the most bizzare things I could see to try to make a pick from. My personal favourite was opening a VHS cassette and using the flat stainless steel spring from inside the lid (It keeps the reels of tape in place) to make a wrench and pick from, using just the scissors on my Army knife. The wrench barely worked, but the pick was so good, I still use a modified form of it; to pick eurocylinder locks (still made from VHS spring) as practise.

[yoyoboy]

A kid I knew in school used to stuff string into keyways to use as a plug spinner. It keep the picked pins in place, and generally pushed up to the shearline. Worked surprisingly well for a cheap trick.

Other than that, the first lock I picked (long before I had say knowledge about ANYTHING) was with the obligatory paperclip pick, and a small master lock key as a tension wrench. I was done with my class work, and I unlocked the computer retaining encloser on the school's computer. Also, the combo for one of our math department's computer carts was 314

[Satan130]

sadly, I'm still stuck with only being able to say I've used a bobby pin and pen cap thing.

on the other hand, i liked those two more then the first set of picks i made. though in retrospect, I'm not sure if that is props to the bobby pin, or just me sucking at making picks.