Hello all, I'm extremely new to lockpicking (~2-3 weeks) so please take
everything I say with a huge grain of salt.
At this point I find it much easier to pick the cheap Schlage locks (no security pins) if i apply the wrench to the top of the keyway. None of my standard wrenches really work well for the task though. (I've got a SouthOrd 14-piece set and a growing assortment of homemade tools) I just made a new set of tension/turning tools which help me greatly, and thought I would post a brief explanation of what I did. If there is interest, I can put together a more detailed post later.
(Please keep in mind a lot of this is based on the tools/materials I had available, and there may be many undesirable things about my approach, especially how I make the right angle bend for the wrench. Suggestions and critique are more than welcome!)
I wanted a tool which gripped the top of the keyway firmly, resisted slipping, and felt natural. Here's what I came up with:
wrench_1.jpg
wrench_2.jpg
The base material is a length of 10 gauge (0.102 inch) steel wire. In my case, the donor material was some left over "Landscape Fabric Staples" used to pin down that black weed-stop fabric. (About $2 USD for 5 or so at Home Depot)
The first step was to put a sharp 90 degree bend in the wire. To accomplish this, I used a method which may not be ideal, but worked the best of the the various experiments I tried. I started by cutting a very shallow V-shaped notch in the wire where the inside corner of the bend would be, leaving about 1.5 inches of wire on the short end to work with. I used a cut-off wheel and a dremel, but a file would probably work just as well.
Next, I heated the notched section of wire over a propane torch with a pencil nozzle until it was a nice cherry red.
Once the notched area was red, I quickly gripped the wire on either side, a little less than an inch from the notch with pliers, and bent in the 90 degree angle. It took me a couple of failed attempts to get a technique which yielded a good bend, and I personally found pushing slightly up/into the bend improved my results.
The bend was then quenched in water,
Next, I clamped the wire down to my workbench with the short end of the "L" sticking up perpendicular to the surface of the bench. I used a decent sized hand file to work the inside corner and edges into a nice, sharp 90 degree angle. The file I used is about an inch wide and and 1/8 of an inch thick, so it cuts a perfect profile.
With the inner edges flattened out, I used a bench grinder to put a matching flat on the outside edge. I stopped before the "business end" was quite thin enough to fit in the keyway, and used a cutoff wheel to cut the short end of the tool down to a hair longer than the distance from the from of the plug to the first pin. (You can use the top of a key to gauge this easily)
Then I refined the end slowly with the file (on the inside edge) and grinder (on the outside edge) until the business end fit snugly into the top of the keyway. The result is a tool you have to push in with about the same force as you would turn a wrench.
Finally, I used the bench grinder to trim down the business end of the tool until it was just a hair shorter than the distance to the first pin (to avoid binding) and rounded the edges just a tad.
Finishing was done with fine sandpaper and a bit of heat shrink tubing. The final sanding bring the tool down to a thickness which slides into the keyway without any effort, but which engages as tightly as a shimmed in wrench.
A few things to note:
1. I'm REALLY new to all this, so I may be giving bad advice
2. The cutting a notch before making the bend seems a bit dubious to me, but I figure the entire compromised portion of the wire is filed away anyway, so the tool perhaps doesn't lose too much strength. Mine are completely rigid, and I have no concern about the tool bending even under heavy pressure.
3. It's easy to overshoot the tight fit into the keyway. If you do this, remember that other keyways (such as on a Master 140 or the Brinks Shrouded which torments me) are narrower, and you can just turn the tool into one for those locks. (Heh... not that I would know from experience... no sir...
)
This isn't quite the first post I had in mind, but I thought I'd contribute if possible.
