Help explain lock picking to a blind person

[Blind Lock Fanatic]

Hi everyone,

I am blind and would like to start getting into the hobby of lock picking. I think I have a decent grasp of how a lock works and how to pick one, but if someone can explain it better, that would be great. Since I can't see the pictures, it can be difficult to get a good understanding on exactly where everything is in a lock and how you can use the tools to pick it. I just received some individual picks and tension wrenches from SouthOrd and attempted to pick a door lock with not much luck. By the way, the door lock is not used at all and I think we lost the key, therefore, I am not scared of potentially damaging the lock. I did get a few pins to set by using a couple rakes and a hook, but I would like to be able to pick the lock just using a hook and understand how to do it. I would like to also get into safe cracking, as in manipulating mechanical combination locks, but that seems significantly more difficult compared to lock picking at the moment. Thanks for any help.

[ltdbjd]

I'd say step one is learning how a lock works ... In significant detail. I'd suggest starting out with a key-in-knob cylinder (known as a KIK; pronounced "kick"). That way you can feel all the main parts.

My suggestion is to either find a local locksmith who would be willing to give you a few top pins, bottom pins and top springs, or them from a lock it's supply company. You'll need a follower, pinning tweezers, a box of top springs, a box of 0.160 top pins, and small selection of bottom pins. Personally, I think the boxes are a lot easier to work with than the bags, but bags of pins work too. I wouldn't spend much on them. A lot of people just use about a 1/2" diameter pipe or dowel instead of buying a follower. I'd scrounge up a piece of carpet or even a dish towel to use as a pinning mat. A small allen wrench or small screwdriver makes taking the tail cap off. Then get some KIK's. You can order some no-name brand ones from a lock supply company for cheap. A dozen or so cap retaining pins and springs wiould be good to have on hand. Note that they aren't all compatible with different brands. These items will be important because below in this post I'll recommend you take the locks apart and reassemble them.

You could get away without having the extra pins and springs, but when you disassemble the locks you'll lose some.

You said "WE don't have a key ...," so I'll presume somebody can help you. If so, have them watch a couple YouTube videos on how to take apart and assemble the lock cylinder. I just mention this in the interest of space. If this isn't possible, I can walk you through the steps.

No for the fun part. Take it all the way apart. Explore the inside of the cylinder and the plug with a hook pick (or something similar). Get an idea of how its constructed, where the pin chambers (holes) are, how they are spaced, etc. Now put it back together. Again, I'll skip the explanation of how to do it, unless it's needed. Repeat the process at least a dozen times. Learn the names of the parts yo feel, in particular the shear line.

That should give you a good tactile impression of how its put together. Once you have an understanding of how its put together, understanding what you're doing when picking will be a lot easier.

Once you've got that down, pin up some progressively pinned cylinders. You can mark each one with a notch on the bible (the part that holds the springs and top pins) to indicate how many pins are in each one.

A cut away lock MIGHT help you if it's done correctly, that way you can feel the pins and springs move, and how everything sets at the shear line with the key inserted. That's the state they will be in when it's properly picked.

I know I haven't gotten into how to actually pick it yet, but I think starting with the knowledge you'll gain from knowing how the lock works is a great way to get started. Trying to explain raising a pin to the shear line will be easier to understand when you gain that foundation.

[Blind Lock Fanatic]

that is a pretty good idea to just take the lock apart and check it out that way. I will have to do that soon. Thanks for the response.

[GWiens2001]

Am sure you have read a number of things here on picking. Here are a couple suggestions, as while I am not blind, I used to keep a couple locks next to my bed with a hook and tension wrench so I could practice when I wake up in the middle of the night.

You are in no way prevented from picking. That is because picking is not a visual skill. It is tactile. You learn what is happening in the lock through the feedback you feel from the tension wrench and the pick. While most people can see into the lock, most of the time it is only as far as the first pin. My picking got better when I started picking at night, because it made me pay attention to what my tools were telling me instead of my eyes, which could not really tell me much anyway.

Do you know if the lock you are picking has spool pins in it? If so, or if you are not sure, it may be better to set it aside temporarily while you pick a lock that you know does not have any security pins.

The lock I use most often to teach people to pick is the Master Number 3 padlock. They do not have any security pins, and only have four pin stacks.

How do you know how many pin stacks are in the lock? The easiest way is with a half-diamond pick. This pick has a flat back, and a triangular tip on the other side. Put the flat back of the pick into the lock and use that to lift all the pins up at the same time. Now slowly pull out the pick, and you can listen and hear each pin stack drop when the pick clears the pin stack. The number of pin stacks you hear drop is the number of pin stacks.

What is a pin stack, you ask? Each pin stack in most locks have three components. First there is the key pin (so named because it is the only part of the pin stack that touches the key). The middle part of the stack is a driver pin, which fits between the key pin and the spring. The driver pin is also what is blocking the shear line. More about the shear line soon. And the third part is, of course, the spring. The spring pushes the driver pin down, so the driver pin pushes down, driving the key pin against the key. All of these parts fit inside a tube called a pin channel.

An easy way to understand this is the pin channel is a piece of pipe. Now drop a battery down into the pipe. That is the key pin. It can move up and down if it is pushed, but it does not care where it is. Now put in another battery. That is your driver pin. Now add your spring and cap off the top of the pipe. If something (a key) pushes up on the bottom battery, it moves that bottom battery, the top battery, and compresses the spring. The spring will always be pushing down on the batteries, so there are no large air gaps.

Now if you take four of these pipes and line them up, you have the four pin stacks in a basic Master padlock. Some padlocks have three pins, some four, five, six or even seven pins. So you simply add more pipes to make the correct number of pin stacks.

OK, so now you can visualize most of the components. What do those pipes fit into? There are two parts that the pin channels go through. There is the plug and the lock body or shell which includes the bible.

The plug is the center part of the lock. It contains the keyway - where the key fits. There are usually wards - metal parts that extend into the keyway to prevent a normal flat piece of metal from fitting into the keyway. The key also has wards - cut where the keyway wards are located, allowing the key to fit into the plug. The plug has holes drilled from the top of the plug extending down partway into the keyway. These are the bottom part of the pin channels. If the bottom part of the pin channels went all the way through the keyway, the pins would drop low enough to that they would block the key from being able to fit under them and enter the keyway.

The shell has a large hole bored through it from front to back that the plug fits into. It also has the top part of the pin channels in it.

Where the plug and shell meet is called the shear line. The shear line is blocked by the driver pins.

Now the idea is to figure out how to make the plug turn. In order to do that, you need to pick the lock. It is a puzzle! But you have a couple tools to help you figure out the puzzle. First is a tension wrench. That is the tool that feels like a piece of metal that is bent over. The tension wrench is used to apply a small amount of light turning pressure. No more turning force than you use to turn the key when opening the lock. Too much turning force and the pins will not move, so keep it light.

Put the short end of the tension wrench into the keyway. You can choose either the bottom of the keyway (away from the pins), or the top of the keyway. If you use the top of the keyway, make sure you do not put the tension wrench in far enough to touch the first set of pins. The advantage of the bottom of keyway (also called BOK tensioning) is that it is easy to keep the tension wrench in the keyway. The downside of BOK tension is that it takes up space in the keyway, reducing how much space you have to maneuver your pick. The advantage of the top of keyway tensioning (also called TOK tensioning) is that it allows you lots of space to maneuver your pick and it applies more even force on the plug. The disadvantage is that it is harder to keep the tension wrench in the keyway.

Now that you are applying light turning pressure, you use your pick to move the pins lightly. One will feel harder to move than the others. Keep lifting it until you feel it click. That is when the separation between the key pin and driver pin have reached the shear line. You will probably feel it more in the tension wrench than in the pick. Then feel around for the next binding pin. Wash, rinse, repeat until all the pins are at the shear line. At that point, the tension wrench can turn the plug and the lock opens!

Good luck! You can certainly do this. Sorry the description was so long, but hope it helps.

Gordon

[ltdbjd]

I like the pipe/battery analogy.

Maybe to expand on it, if you take a horizontal piece of pipe, and slide a slightly narrower pipe through it, you have the plug and the shell. If you drill a hole straight through the top of both pieces of pipe, now you have the plug and cylinder. Attach your vertical pipe and battery to the the top hole you just drilled in the horizontal pipe, you now have a one pin lock.

The problem is that the batteries would fall into the horizontal pipes because they are pushed down by the spring. The batteries prevent the inside pipe from rotating. The lock is locked. The only way to turn the inside pipe is to lift the two batteries high enough so that the space between the top and bottom battery line up with the space between the inside and outside horizontal pipe. Once that happens, the inside pipe can turn. That's because the bottom battery will be in the inside pipe, and the top battery will still be inside the vertical pipe.

If you don't lift the batteries high enough, they will still keep the inside pipe from turning. If you lift them too high, then the bottom battery gets stuck between the two pipes = you've over lifted. If you try to turn the inside pipe too hard when you lift the batteries, they get wedged in place and you won't be able to turn it = too much tension.

If you connect a wire between the top and bottom battery, you create a circuit, and the buzzer makes a sound. Oh wait, sorry. Wrong lesson.

[Blind Lock Fanatic]

All good information. I actually was trying to use the long part of the tension wrench because I thought it was supposed to go in as far as possible, but I guess not haha. Thanks again for the help.

[ltdbjd]

How's the picking coming along?