Misticmight wrote:One other thing to remember is that the UK has a lot of dimple locks (I believe) so it might be worth investing in a flag or two. Also there's a great guide to making simple dimple rakes on the forum that you might want to take a look at.
I''ve not yet seen a dimple lock on a door but to be fair I don't travel far around the country so maybe that's taking off in some areas. In most cases, newer houses have uPVC doors and cheapie 5 or 6 pin Euro pin tumblers, whereas older houses often have wooden doors and lever mortice locks on the back doors (sometimes the front too as a deadbolt), with Yale-style night latches on the front door. That's what's fitted by the house builders and AFAIK most people don't bother to change them, however the "upgraded" stuff is basically just higher-end Yale, Union or lesser known brands from the hardware stores like B&Q. So that just means maybe 6 pins, maybe security pins for the Euro cylinders and Yale do some fancy night latched with integrated deadbolts and such. You'd have to go to a locksmith to get anything better, and even then - well, the locksmiths in my area are sorely lacking decent stuff on the shelves tbh. Dimples are seen as pretty esoteric here (even though they're not necessarily any more secure with the right tools).
For padlocks, from the £1 shops and general hardware places you'll see a lot of no-name brass and pot-metal padlocks, including some 'big' Chinese brands like Tri-Circle as well as some slightly cheaper branded locks, often colourful combination locks and "waterproof" shed padlocks. At the bigger hardware stores (B&Q, Wickes, Homebase etc) you'll get mostly branded stuff, lots of Master Lock Abus - mostly the lower ends of the range, I've not seen anything more expensive than about £20-30 in terms of padlocks at these stores with the odd couple of exceptions. Lock shops generally have a much better range but it's still mostly Abus, Master lock, Yale, Chubb, etc. Some very good locks from those companies but you won't find the likes of Anchor Las or Ruko here.
Ah... Apologies, I'm blathering on. Locks in the UK is an interest of mine since I live here and I love any opportunity to bemoan the poor state of decent locks in this country, haha! Regardless, to CunningSmile I do definitely recommend getting or making a dimple picking kit anyway, it's good to have a range of options and be able to practice on more stuff, and if you need the skills outside of the hobby for work or whatever you wouldn't want to run up against the occasional lock with dimples and not know how to pick it
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. I'm betting most stuff is in London, there's at least one group there I know of, in a hackerspace but personally I don't really have time to travel to London on anything other than a special-event basis.
