Front to back, or not?

[LinZex]

I seem to come across alot of posts saying you guys pick from the back of the keyway to the front, but I pick front to back.

Is there anything wrong with that? Is one way better than the other?


LinZex

[cheerIO]

It really doesn't matter which way you approach a lock. It's just the direction you initially feel a lock out.

You are not actually going to pick it front to back, or back to front. You're going to pick it in the binding order.

[bembel]

cheerIO is right, whatever binds first.
It is also helpful to know where the regular and the security pins are. If an Abus, for example, has its regular pin on the 5th position I'm setting this one first (the others are spool pins). This has nothing to do with back or front being better, it's about the pin positions.

[Squelchtone]

I prefer to pick

from side to side
So what, the ride, the glide should be much safer than a suicide
Soul control, beat is the father of your rock'n'roll
Music for whatcha, for whichin', you call a band, man
Makin' a music, abuse it, but you can't do it, ya know
You call 'em demos, but we ride limos, too
Whatcha gonna do? Rap is not afraid of you
Beat is for Sonny Bono, beat is for Yoko Ono
Run DMC first said a deejay could be a band
Stand on its feet, get you out your seat
Beat is for Eric B, and L.L. as well, hell
Wax is for Anthrax, still it can rock bells
Ever forever, universal, it will sell
Time for me to exit, Terminator X-it


Squelchtone

[Robotnik]

Turn it up!

[Robotnik]

Bring the noise!

[deolslyfox]

I generally start at the back and work forward, but it really makes ni difference.

[Big Jesse]

if using bottom of key way tension, it will cause a pivot point in the middle of the plug, almost like a fulcrum, thus making a seesaw or teeter-totter out of the plug itself, inside of the cylinder. (do i still have your attention? (see link below)

http://i.imgur.com/WLoEorx.gif

the tension wrench becomes the 'effort', the back of the plug becomes the 'load', the middle is the fulcrum, thus, the fist binding pin will naturally be the back pin. not every time, but you are forcing the back pin to bind first by using bottom of key way tension in the front. (the front pin doesn't want to bind first because you are pulling the plug of the lock down while apply torsion, thus forcing the back of the plug up, while also rotating it. understand? its very minute (small), but its there.

again...
because not only is the tension wrench torquing (applying tension in a circular direction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque), but you are literally pulling down on the lock, causing the back end to pop up (very minutely) thus causing the last pin to bind first (typically). if you use top of key way torsion, its the opposite, and the front pin will usually bind first. (because you are forcing the front of the plug up, and torquing at the same time.

yes, there is a natural binding order in a lock, due to manufacturing tolerances, but depending on those tolerances, you can manipulate the 'slop' or 'play' in a cylinder by levering the plug, thus creating a new binding order.

THAT is what was taught to me when i was a locksmith. all the locksmiths at my shop picked from back to front, then front to back, then randomly. i have never known or worked with a locksmith that understood or practice finding natural binding order like 3-4-1-2-5. they always use physics to manipulate a binding order from back to front.

doesnt always work. its just what i start off with.


heres something most people dont know...
i was told once, that the only way to find a natural binding order of a lock, the king most people 'claim' to have found... while using bottom of the keway tension, could only be done by using a tension wrench that was so long (on the working end) that it would have to go all the way through the lock.. to the back, and poke out the back, which would allow you to apply completely even torsion and pressure on the plug, within the cylinder. THAT is the only way to find the natural 'binding order' in a lock. the actual binding order which is created by inaccurate machining and milling processes. people think they have the natural binding order, but really its just the binding order that is relative to the type of tension you are applying to the plug and cylinder.

thus. do what ever you want. manipulate your very own binding order, and happy picking.

[Big Jesse]

note, if there was such a thing as finding the 'natural binding order' of a lock, and the physics of applying downward pressure, as well as torsion to the front of the lock didnt exist, then picking a lock would be as easy as reading a list of numbers, 1-2-3-4-5, picking that order, then going down the list... 1-3-4-5-2, 1-4-5-2-3, (permutations, there are only 120 possible combinations with 5 digits and none repeating. http://mathcentral.uregina.ca/QQ/database/QQ.09.07/h/debbie3.html) etc of all the possible combinations out of 5 numbers, and you would eventually open the lock. but thats not going to happen because on earth we are governed by physics, and you are indeed changing the natural binding order (that really wont be found through normal technique) and creating a new binding order that is relative to your
A. technique
B. tension
C. torsion
D. consistency of all 3 listed above.
E. many other variables that are too many to list.

(also, binding orders can change when certain pins meet the sheer line, or there are changes in the pin like serrations or bevels or spools)

so cause..make..create binding in the lock to happen, and then pick that pin that is binding and move on.

[Jburgett2nd]

I start by giving it a zip to get a feel for it, usually back to front but it doesn't really make a difference.

[Squelchtone]

note, if there was such a thing as finding the 'natural binding order' of a lock, and the physics of applying downward pressure, as well as torsion to the front of the lock didnt exist, then picking a lock would be as easy as reading a list of numbers, 1-2-3-4-5, picking that order, then going down the list... 1-3-4-5-2, 1-4-5-2-3, (permutations, there are only 120 possible combinations with 5 digits and none repeating. http://mathcentral.uregina.ca/QQ/database/QQ.09.07/h/debbie3.html) etc of all the possible combinations out of 5 numbers, and you would eventually open the lock. but thats not going to happen because on earth we are governed by physics, and you are indeed changing the natural binding order (that really wont be found through normal technique) and creating a new binding order that is relative to your
A. technique
B. tension
C. torsion
D. consistency of all 3 listed above.
E. many other variables that are too many to list.

(also, binding orders can change when certain pins meet the sheer line, or there are changes in the pin like serrations or bevels or spools)

so cause..make..create binding in the lock to happen, and then pick that pin that is binding and move on.

The whole tension/torque/torsion/turning force thing is as old as this hobby but I gotta tell you you're being very dismissive of binding order which IS A THING, and I think its not going to help new pickers understand fundamentals that we have all accepted for years if you tell them to go make up their own binding order. If that works for you then great, but I wouldn't go teaching it to every new member here as something written in stone.

Also, most folks here know I hate using the words torque or torsion because I believe they are being used incorrectly and used by folks who are neither mechanical engineers nor physicists, . I used the term tension wrench out of tradition, even though that probably isn't correct or fully accurate either, so for the last few years I have always taught people that "tension wrench" was the best name locksmiths could come up with in the last 100 years (since they aren't engineers or scientists), and it stuck, but I prefer to call it a "turning tool", or "wrench to apply rotational force" onto the plug in order to distort the pin stack column and allow pins to stay set and not come back down.

One thing this isn't, is torsion. Torsion is the twisting of metal, like a bridge deck or skyscraper i-beam under heavy load.


We are in no way deforming the plug while applying torque to it. Sure, it may dip like the fulcrum explanation, and I get what you're saying about the plug as a cylinder not turning in a balanced fashion around it's axis unless you stuck a wrnech all the way through and pressed on it from both sides equally, totally understand that visual. I like to compare the dipping effect to that of an old muscle car's engine. When you pop the hood to look at the engine, if you pull on the throttle linkage you can see the engine dipping in the engine bay to one side, due to the torque. I'd like to think though that the airgap around the plug is small enough where we aren't straight up making our own binding order. I'll agree with you that the 1st and last pin probably see some minute changes depending on if I use top of keyway or bottom of keyway tensioning (using that term out of tradition), but if applying clockwise rotational force and the plug's 3rd chamber is visibly the most off center, then that's going to be the 1st pin to set for that lock, there's no way to change that unless you reverse direction and the binding order changes to some other pin stack that has a hole offset in the plug in the other direction.

I'm no scientist or engineer, and I think this picture shows torque pretty well as a rotational force, and I understand why some folks in the locksport community borrowed it to describe what the wrench's job is, but I've always equated using the word torque with applying lots of energy to something, like tightening a bolt:


At the scale of a lock cylinder and a "tension wrench" (again, just using this as the traditionally accepted word, not splitting hairs about which one is best to use) I feel like we're just lightly pressing on a wrench to keep set pins from having a straight tunnel to slide back down, we're not trying to torque a bolt to x foot pounds.


I'm open to having a healthy conversation about this, as it is a very interesting topic, but I have to stick to my guns and say that binding order based on mechanical tolerances and imperfections from the factory IS a thing and should not be discounted so easily.

Thanks for your write up, and additional feedback
Squelchtone

[bembel]

This teeter-totter thing sounds interesting, but how crappy must a lock be for this having an effect on the binding order? I do not deny it, it's just that it might work on really cheap locks only.

[MBI]

This teeter-totter thing sounds interesting, but how crappy must a lock be for this having an effect on the binding order? I do not deny it, it's just that it might work on really cheap locks only.

I've noticed I can sometimes affect binding order depending on where and how I use the tension wrench. As you said, it does seem to me that the crappier a lock is the more likely this will work. I had little success with it on medium to high quality locks. Little enough that I'm not sure I've ever even shown it to anyone as part of teaching them to pick. Always struck me as more of a quirk than a problem solving technique, but I can see how it might potentially help you out of a jam on a stubborn lock when nothing else has worked, especially on a low-quality gummed up lock.

[Big Jesse]

but if applying clockwise rotational force and the plug's 3rd chamber is visibly the most off center, then that's going to be the 1st pin to set for that lock, there's no way to change that unless you reverse direction and the binding order changes to some other pin stack that has a hole offset in the plug in the other direction.
Squelchtone

^ i like that logic above very much!

thank you very much for your input on this. I 100% understand where you are coming from and I thank you for humbling me and teaching me something new.

I think I personally get upset when people say "find the binding order" then state "this locks binding order is...". To me, the binding order is only relative to the type of tension being applied to the lock, and I did my best to explain that its different for everyone. If you take a Master Lock #3, and pass it around, and everyone used a different tension wrench, bottom of keyway and top of keyway, then you should (in my theory) have a different binding order every time. It was merely my intention to let people dismiss that there is a specific binding order, when they are frustrated and dont understand why they cant find it if Joe-Bob found it, and instead to just find a pin that is binding and go for it.

however if i came off as rude or ignorant to the laws of physics, or to your preferred terminology then I apologize.

If i used the word torsion incorrectly, it was lack for a better word when talking about circular tension, which is in the definition of torsion, and I was doing my best to help people understand that more is happening than just 'tension'. The plug is being pulled down, as well as rotated. You know this, I know this, but the people reading may not know, and I apologize if I was being misleading in my terminology. I was a mechanic and a welder, not an engineer.

Furthermore...

This description will help support your idea, that torsion is and should only be used...
"In the field of solid mechanics, torsion is the twisting of an object due to an applied torque" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsion_(mechanics)

However...

may we look at the terms used to describe 'Torsion Tensor' here... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsion_tensor

"The companion notion of curvature measures how moving frames "roll" along a curve "without twisting".

With that explanation, Torsion Tensor is describing torsion, without the 'twisting' force, but rolling along a curve, which is the anatomy of cylinder... a lock.

This is why I believe the word torsion, in the correct context can still be applied to the physics of rotating a cylinder.

However, if you would like to replace the word torsion, with torsion tensor, I would be happy to.

Thank you again for teaching me this!


PS. I asked my dad, who is a retired master mechanic, and he concluded its better to tell people "just push the darn thing then". I like the way he thinking.

Thank you all for your advice and corrections to my write up.

[Big Jesse]

This teeter-totter thing sounds interesting, but how crappy must a lock be for this having an effect on the binding order? I do not deny it, it's just that it might work on really cheap locks only.

the real question is, can you even feel it. it depends on you, and it would depend on the lock.
to prove the point, just get a caliper, of decent quality, and measure the Outer Diameter of the plug, then measure the Inner Diameter of the Cylinder. THERE is your tolerance, the difference between those two numbers. the better you get, the better you will feel it.

I will say this, and nobody will believe me, but my dad and I used to play a game like this.

my dad is a retired master mechanic. hes worked on everything from F-4 fighter jets, to steam locomotive engines, to cars (body, interior, and motor) to roller coasters and retired from the roller coaster industry after 28 years. now hes a master luthier. he works on stringed instruments.

i made a bet with him, that i could touch, pinch, with my right thumb and index finger, a guitar string, and tell him what gauge of string he had installed on any of the guitars in his room... there were 80 guitars to pick from. but i would only do this on the high E string, the 1st string, (the bottom one). now, he normally only applied a .009 - .010, so i had a 50% chance of getting it right. so when i started to do this, he wasnt so impressed, even after 8 or so guitars... until i found a string that was right in the middle, and i told him so, i said .0095, i said it was a defect, and he pulled out his starret dial calipers, and sure enough, it was right in the middle. the string had a defect, it was supposed to be a .009, per the customers request, but it was almost a .010. he checked the package, and couldnt believe that not only the factory would release strings like that, but that i could tell the difference. im not super man, its just a fun game my dad and i played while he was working in his shop, and we exchanged war stories together.

the fact is, you dont know, till you try.