Muskedunder wrote:I just find it to be more of a luck thing for me
It depends. On the begining yes. It's a luck thing. But you will soon find that there is a proper technique to rake.
I haven't really trained raking much too. But I can say I can rake many more locks opened than in the begining. Because you can in fact "visualise" a bit of what's going inside the lock.
Of course it's a bit clumbsier. But you get better as you do it more often, so that means it's not just luck.
In fact, raking is used a lock to aid SPP. You rake the lock a bit, and then finish SPP. In a 5 pin lock, if you set 3 pins in 2 or 3 raking strokes, it's much quicker to open!
ARF-GEF wrote:But as I said it's a a subjective realm of taste and personal conviction.
Completely agree.
If you don't like raking, there's no point in doing it. But don't let yourself from doing just because of those reasons. It opens a lot of doors I think (and this IS a metaphor!). I'll tell you 2 stories about why it's good to rake:
1. To show your friends and family.
NOW, BE CAREFULL! It's not as a show off thing (there are a lot of posts about this,
here's one). But of course close family and friends will know about your hobby. How about you demonstrate how (in)secure is a lock? I had that situation once. Took about 3minutes to pick a lock similar to what a friend has at home. He then said: "Yeah, 3min.. With people passing by, pressure upon you, kneeling down on my door... You couldn't break into my house easily".
Then I raked it in 5secs. He changed the lock. The impact of picking a lock in a few seconds is very big.
2. To be a confidence builder.
I don't know about you. But when I'm not in a good shape I grab my confidence locks (those wich you can pick quite easily). They give me confidence to keep going.
Some locks I can rake open but some times they give me a very hard time on SPP. So hard that I suddently don't care anymore about picking them. I just want them F-ING opened! Instead of grabing other locks, I just rake it open, close and start again. It works really well on keeping me up. Kinda like when you are playing video games, get stuck in a level, use cheats to get through it, and then go back and do it again without cheats?
Of course this is, as stated before, a personality thing.
But I do agree with you about being elegant. It's really good to feel in control and know exactly when the lock is about to open.
Go ahead, keep plugging away, picking on me! You will end up on bypass or with rigor mortise.
- GWiens2001