Best control line picking question

[hatrabbit]

I'm pretty much still a beginner, making do with tools I've made and just picking as something to do in front of the TV. Several locks I practice with are Best padlocks. I have a question about picking them to the control shear line.
I can open these padlocks, often by raking them, but in the hundreds of times I've picked my Best padlocks I have never once gotten the partial turn which releases the cylinder. Wouldn't you think that just by random chance I would once in a while get the control line picked?

Can anyone explain why this has never happened?

[kwoswalt99-]

You would think that you would get it once in a while, but the thing I've noticed is that certain locks like to open to one or the other. If your not directly tensioning the control shear line you never can tell. If it opens really easy, you probably open it before you ever get a chance to pick it to control.

[Squelchtone]

[Topic moved from Beginner to Intermediate]

[billdeserthills]

You should make a special tension wrench, to allow you to pick the core, if you wish. It isn't too difficult, I made a couple back in 1990
and they worked. I just used the spacing of the holes on the underside of the IC Core, and removed some material from my tension wrench,
with a file, so it would 'grab' in those holes & turn the control portion of the lock cylinder.

[hatrabbit]

I remember seeing somewhere that somebody had posed the dimensions to cut those notches. I'm going to find that and give it a shot. Thanks.

[Squelchtone]

I remember seeing somewhere that somebody had posed the dimensions to cut those notches. I'm going to find that and give it a shot. Thanks.

[billdeserthills]

I remember seeing somewhere that somebody had posed the dimensions to cut those notches. I'm going to find that and give it a shot. Thanks.

I just put my tension wrench into an ic core and made marks where not to file, it doesn't need to be perfect.
Some keyways are too large and the wrench will tip, so I shove a piece of a shim next to the wrench too

[Evan]

Wow Squelchtone that bottom image is like a scan of the original Locksmith Ledger article :-O