How important is the center post in a 7 pin tubular lock?

[tripleblowfish]

I was showing a friend how vulnerable tubular locks are (on unused locks). On my last demonstration, the lock that would normally take 3-5 seconds was not working at all this time. So I pulled the pick out to reset the tool and I noticed the center post was still inside the lock itself. I was a bit nervous thinking the tools useless now. However, I pulled the post out and inserted where I could see a darker line where the post was originally on the pick. The lock picked as usual.

So I am still able to use it for now. But I was wondering other than alignment, is there another purpose for the center post? I checked to see if it just fell out but thats not the case. It snapped right where it begins to come out. The post is hollow. So I was thinking of gorilla gluing it back in with a toothpick if necessary. Though Im not sure how well that would work for future use.

Heres where Im at:

[oORusHOo]

It's just for alignment, and they actually break quite a lot. My one bent a few weeks ago, but i just bent it back and glued it down. I really wish they made them as a solid post :/

[tripleblowfish]

Yeah you would think they would do that if this happens often. I could try to pry the piece thats inside off, and then insert a new solid rod with guerrilla glue.

[raimundo]

the center post pickup, is not actually necessary, and you can learn to use the pick without it.
there are even varients of the lock that have no keyslot for that pickup.

If picking without the keyslot pickup, go gently not with brute force.

the pins themselves will pickup the torque and rotate the center stem.

beware of smaller diameter steel pins in locks between the regular spacing of the pins, these are actually wards to keep out keys not cut to fit them, but they only serve as a center pickup replacement when the lock is being impressioned by bic pen method.

[Eyes_Only]

When that happened to me I just drilled out the remaining half of that rod that was still in the tool and snipped a small allen wrench to the appropriate size and gently tapped it into where the original rod was. Hasn't broken yet.