My experience has been very different. I've picked a ton of stuff with mine and I have no complaints. There are actually a few videos on my YT channel in which I've used them, and not on rubbish locks either... I'd be more than happy to do a video picking a bunch of stuff with just a couple of those hooks, when I have time. I haven't made any vids in a long time actually so I might just put that on my to-do list.
KPick wrote:No I've tried them. The picks are very cheap.
I believe you. And I know they're cheap. Mine were a fiver including delivery. It's insane, and I was expecting them to be rubbish.
KPick wrote:I'll tell you that with all honesty, they are too cheap for use.
That's your opinion. To me, if something works, it works. I like them. Cheap doesn't always equal crap. I'm sure they're not made of good metal, it actually seems like they're made with some kind of copper-coloured metal and coated with a thin layer of chrome or something. And they're stamped out, no doubt about that. All I know is, they're very strong. And they do handle well. I was pleasantly surprised, as I was expecting them to be complete junk.
KPick wrote:The shank goes only into about 1 to 1 and a half inches into the plastic. Other than that, The feed back is poor. Why? The plastic sorrounding the handle of the shank was mostly shrinking the feedback. In order for the user to get decent feedback, he or she would need to use a pick with a stiffer material at the handle.
You're right, they're not full tang. But they are seated into those handles pretty solid. There's no play whatsoever. The plastic has nothing to do with feedback, at least not for me. I find that the feedback is mostly the tip of the pick when it comes to feeling for binding, and when pins shear, I feel it through the shaft of the pick which my finger is resting on. I have picks with all kinds of handles (peterson dipped, peterson molded plastic, southord laminated steel, these cheapo ones, some wood, some bare metal, some with heat shrink tubing, etc etc)... the handle material makes absolutely no difference to me as long as it isn't huge and bulky. The handles are a good bit longer than they need to be, but they're not bulky. And bulkiness has more to do with maneuverability than feedback anyway. Of course whereas I'm not fussed on handle material etc, some people do have a preference.
I don't know what you're on about when you talk about handle stiffness, are the ones you have loose and wobbly in the handle or what? The ones you got must be different to mine because the handles on mine are plenty solid.
KPick wrote:Also, the picks are thick.They are only useful on cheapo locks. They are useful IF the user grinds some material off the shank of the pick. In order to get this kind of finish, one would need a grinding wheel or some kind of dremel attachment to file it down. Then of course, polish the pick for a smooth pick, other than the rough scratchiness of the raw grinded pick.
The picks are certainly not thick. They're about as thick as a peterson DCAP, which is a little thicker than a standard pick but only barely. The profile itself is very slender and I can get around pretty tight keyways with them. Corbin, EVVA and DOM spring to mind. The yale 1A (Y1 to the americans), which is by far the most common profile here, is no challenge whatsoever. Although that's not saying much cos you can use standard picks on them just fine, but yeah. I don't know where you get the idea that these are only for cheap crappy locks.
Here, I even took some photos:
Pic 1 shows thickness.
Pic 2 shows profile comparison.
Picks from left to right are peterson standard short hook, peterson DCAP hook, and one of the cheapo hooks that you hate so much and claim don't fit in anything
Also, the cheapo hook pictured is one of the 2 that I fairly regularly abuse. Either the ones you got were a bad batch, or I just got extremely lucky.
Remember, I'm just talking about my own personal experience with the ones I got. It is possible that the ones you got are really thick and badly put together. I had a goso pick set years ago which contained some half diamond picks with multiple peaks, and the shafts on those were really thick. And I'm pretty sure these are made at the same factory, so it's possible that they come out all different thicknesses and stuff and I happened to get a good set. And I've had mine for 3 or 4 years now, so maybe they used to be thicker way back when and they changed them, or they've started making them thicker more recently or something like that. Hell if I know. So let's not take the matter into the circle of death or anything haha.
