Tool recommendations, information on your favorite automatic and/or mechanical lockpicking devices for those with less skills, or looking to make their own.
In one of my old lockpicking books (@1975) it mentions a "Rake gun".
"When the trigger is squeezed, the pick extends slowly forward. Being spring loaded, when it reaches its full forward travel, it snaps back out of the lock, raking all the pins on the way out."
I was wondering if anybody has ever seen one of these.
Never seen it before. In concept it seems like a reverse bump method. I bet it's a nightmare trying to hold it at just the right depth to make sure it extends the whole way across the pins, then keeping it steady as it snaps to make sure it bumps each pin stack. I could be wrong though...
"If you are not currently on a government watch list. You are doing something wrong" - GWiens2001
Yes, I agree, it would take some practice to use. From the shape, I would expect it is smaller than our usual pick guns (even though I bet the handle and trigger are the same size). There would juct be some modifications to the internals to change from a vertical 'snap' to a horizontal 'rake'. I certainly don't see any for sale on the web. Not eBay or Amazon or any of the usual vendors. (I would have expected the Chinese to have something únusual' like this.) There aren't even any references to it on Google or Bing. (Hey, we are unique on the Internet!!) Maybe somebody has one in their collection of obscure lockpicking gadgets.
Pretty sure I saw that same picture before, in a different Desert Publications booklet that dated to the '70s, the book on lock picking probably.
Have not seen one for sale, but maybe one could grind a rake attachment and use a dimple lock bump gun? The gun in the picture would need an almost 1" stroke to use the style of rake shown--to repurpose a dimple gun one might have to make a rake with multiple waves so a short stroke would touch all pins.
Guessing that it may not be the most effective means to rake open a lock. The only advantage of great speed applied to a rake would be to basically bump the lock, so why not use a bump key? Or a normal pick gun? Maybe there is an advantage to this I am not seeing.
Yes Jacob, that is the book. "Lock Picking Simplified" , Desert Publications, Cornville, AZ 86325 1975 Revised Edition ISBN 0-87947-101-8 They had eight other lock picking titles at that time.
I made something similar out of a pumpkin carving gun and a street bristle. The thought was that bogotas require the back and forth action... My wife got the gun on sale for like $5, I let the kids carve their pumpkins first. Here it is at lockfest last year:
TorontoGuy wrote:Yes Jacob, that is the book. "Lock Picking Simplified" , Desert Publications, Cornville, AZ 86325 1975 Revised Edition ISBN 0-87947-101-8 They had eight other lock picking titles at that time.
TG
Cornville, Arizona? I thought the two biggest things there were the diner on the creek and skunks. Must be produced out of someone's home.
Gordon
Just when you finally think you have learned it all, that is when you learn that you don't know anything yet.
TorontoGuy wrote:Yes Jacob, that is the book. "Lock Picking Simplified" , Desert Publications, Cornville, AZ 86325 1975 Revised Edition ISBN 0-87947-101-8 They had eight other lock picking titles at that time.
TG
Cornville, Arizona? I thought the two biggest things there were the diner on the creek and skunks. Must be produced out of someone's home.
Gordon
That company published a number of lock related books that were specifically targeted at the non-locksmith. May have been the first books not controlled by the locksmithing community. They were sold by Paladin Press, Delta Press, and (I would imagine) in magazines like Soldier of Fortune. If you were trying to learn about locks back in the '80's it was either these books or Eddie the Wire's book (and maybe Steve Hampton's books were out then?) The Desert books included picking, bypassing, tubular locks, safe manipulation, and maybe others. They were small books stapled together. They were not that good, but back they were the best that was available.
Interestingly enough, some of the illustrations showed up in Phillip's Complete Book of Locks and Locksmithing--Phillips gave the illustration credit to Desert Publications.
Oh, I remember those books and authors well. Just did not remember that they were from Cornville, which I had never heard of until I was a fair bit older. It is a genuine blink-and-you-miss-it town. Quite nice, and used to enjoy eating at that restaurant mentioned above. But did not realize anybody was publishing there.
Gordon
Just when you finally think you have learned it all, that is when you learn that you don't know anything yet.
