Southord Slimline thickness

[stoatnchips]

Fist off, hi to everyone! Only been in this hobby a couple of weeks but learning fast and having fun!!

I started out as many people do, making my own tools from wiper blade inserts... they worked up to a point and so i decided to invest in a proper set. After reading through many posts on this forum i decided on some slimline picks from Southord, the C1510. While using this set on a particular padlock i found that some of pick bound up in the keyway, while others fit just right.... so i got my mic out to measure them. Half seem to be made from one stock, 0.57mm or 0.022" and the other half from slightly thicker stuff at 0.65mm or 0.026" Is this normal? are they all within a tolerance of 0.6mm or something?

thanks

[fgarci03]

Interesting. Never had noticed that!

I don't have any measurement tools to do it properly, but I'll be looking for that on tight keyways in the future. Thanks for pointing that out!


And welcome to the forum

[escher7]

This should be under mechanical picks.
I recently ordered a Southord slimline snake from Bumpmylock and found it too flexible for most work. I ordered a regular snake and kept the slimline for hard keyways. It measured 20 - 21 thou. My other slimlines are a couple of thou. thicker. There must have been different runs from stock that varied a bit.

[daniel22747]

I have some slimlines from southord and some are clearly a little thicker than others, my snake rake in particular.
Maybe it depends on how the pick is to be used.

[MrWizard]

Southord explains their Slimline Picks as follows.

“Slim Line” actually refers to the cut of the neck in the picks, rather than the thickness. If you compare our Standard picks with the Slim Line, you will see that the necks of the Slim Line are cut more narrow, and are more suitable to locks with narrow keyways. The Slim Line picks were introduced in .025” thickness, and were that thickness for a very long time. Only fairly recently, our company made the decision to phase in a new thickness of picks, at .022”, and we are phasing out the .025” thickness. Please also note that steel manufacturers have up to .002” tolerance, so the thickness in steel can vary in thickness by .002”, in either direction.

Richard