Making rakes slicker with graphite

[unjust]

my pleasure. part of what got me back excited about locksport was getting a little bit into machining, and a big part of my day job is understanding materials, how they behave and age. (i work in architecture)

personally, i polish my picks depending on what i'm doing with them. tools for spp get what can best be described as either a fine matte finish, but a few are as highly polished as seems reasonable. - i want to be able to feel what's going on, and the little bit of friction with a matte finish -i find- gives me more feed back than a slick pick. i'm talking fully deburred, and shaped as i want with blemishes removed, and then surface finish worked on. but sometimes, having that super smooth mirror finish pick really helps.

for rakes/jigglers/bogotas i also find that either matte or polished works better on different locks- they behave a bit differently as they transmit force differently by adding or removing friction.

i didn't really grok how much of an impact this had until raimundo sat down with me and explained polishing and pick finishing. i'd deburred picks before and hit em with a few swipes of sand paper, but understanding that the finishing process continues to shape the pick, and how that impacts how they move has shifted my finishing process and thoughts a LOT. seriously, if you've got a couple of the same rakes/picks you never use from yet another $15 southord set, debur and sand them both the same down to an older 400 grit sandpaper, then take one up to 1200+ grit and try them on the same lock - totally different feel, and both (potentially) totally useful.

the other thing to remember is locksport is NOT about hundreds of pounds of force bearing at speed. we're moving some grains of metal rice around a few milimeters at most, with toothpicks and piano wire. you don't need lubricants for that, and changing the reliability of the tactile experience isn't going to make you more consistent. sure you *could* keep a jar of dry sil lube around, dip and wipe on a clean papertowel before every lock, but you'll probably be more reliable by cutting back on caffeine.

[smokingman]

As a fellow machinist ,locksmith and gunsmith, I agree with unjust.
I have used graphite on tools and in locks but gave it up years ago for various reasons.
And, the small grooves left after polishing can be filled in with a coat or two of car wax,
giving a super smooth feel.
Good for rust protection on blued steel picks and works for smoothness on stainless.
Graphite actually polishes,but very slow compared to doing it with traditional methods,
put some between to pieces of metal and rub them together for a while and it will be evident.
Many gun lubes have it in them,but it is best not to leave it in permanently as it will accelerate wear
on parts like sears.

[Jacob Morgan]

I see your point Jacob. You are a mechanic. Ask a clockmaker if he lubes clock gears. I know he doesn't.
I'm not a rake fan. I polish my picks and, from time to time, use some car body wax on them. I know this works very well. Your graphite idea may work too. I haven't tried it thought.
Cheers

\

You are correct that clockmakers do not put oil on gear teeth--there is not much stress there and it would pick up any dust in the air to make an abrasive slurry. However, they definitely put highly refined oil on bushings and pivots. The brass or bronze Bushings are concave so they will hold a little oil. The pivots are usually polished steel. A quality mechanical clock should be ultrasonically cleaned and reoiled every few years. If not eventually the bushings wear out (turn egg-shaped and then gears do not align right) and the bushings have to be replaced and pivots cleaned up or replaced, a several hundred dollar job by a clock maker. Really well built clocks may go for a long time with no oil, but they will all wear out without it.

brass and bronze are generally considered by machinists and metalurgists to be self lubricating. adding lubricants to them is just adding something to mess with the tolerances and/or collect gunk.
on an all steel or iron lock? yes, by all means it may be beneficial to add a lubricant.

There is "free-machining" brass, with a lead content of up to a few percentage points. The lead helps to lubricate machining done to the brass, and presumably the finished item may have some self-lubricating properties. People tend to be freaked out by lead and there are some newer free-machining metals that are supposed to work without the lead. It would be interesting to know what kind of brass LAB and other such companies companies use. But in industrial plants and such gear reducers with brass and bronze gears are lubricated with oil, basically old-fashioned steam-era cylinder oil (not sulfur-containing extreme pressure oils, that can eat away at brass).

Again, what got me thinking about lubrication was how to replicate the smoothness of chromed rakes. The chrome-plated A-1 picks were so much slicker than highly-polished steel picks that it got me thinking about how to give a little more slickness to non-chromed rakes. I'm not the biggest fan of rakes, but popping locks open with the A-1 picks was just plain fun. If some sort of surface treatment lubrication on rakes can give an extra 10% edge then why not?

The idea of car wax is interesting, appreciate the lead. I think I have some furniture wax to try also.

[femurat]

Now I want to chrome one of my picks!

Cheers

[unjust]

you can certainly polish steel up that smooth, most of them aren't as bright as chrome, but it'll take a mirror finish. i'd be tempted to look at some of the woodworking cast iron tool top waxes. you *might* be able to get a fingerful of them if you ask nicely at a local retailer like rocker.

[Ralph_Goodman]

Now I want to chrome one of my picks!

Cheers

How have I never seen anyone do that?

Everyone is doing these very cool new designs nowadays, but I have yet to see a pick so shiny it blinds me.

Someone needs to do this now.

[femurat]

I know a place that can do that for me. I'll keep you updated.

Cheers

[femurat]

you can certainly polish steel up that smooth, most of them aren't as bright as chrome, but it'll take a mirror finish. i'd be tempted to look at some of the woodworking cast iron tool top waxes. you *might* be able to get a fingerful of them if you ask nicely at a local retailer like rocker.

I already polish my homemade picks.

I don't understand what you mean about the tool wax. Is it better than car wax?

Thanks

[unjust]

in a wood shop, tools like jointers and table saws have a large somewhat polished but ground dead flat cast iron bed. you don't want to paint this as the paint will be uneven and make your cuts not flat. you also don't want the exposed cast iron to rust, so you need to seal it somehow. but, you don't want whatever you seal it with to rub off and leave residue on your wood, as that will affect the finish you're going to apply to the completed work.

the traditional way is to apply a paste wax, like those from johnsons or minwax. pastewax is a wax/solvent mixture - the solvent evaporates leaving a thin film of a wax that's hard enough to not readily wear off, but thin enough (because of the solvent) that it doesn't change the overall flatness of the table.

another method is to rub waxed paper over the surface, but i've found that to be less fun than french polishing (imagine firmly rubbing a piece of furniture all over with what amounts to a cotton ball, 7-10 times over to give it a mirror finish polish. it's *very* pretty, but tedious -- somewhere around coat 4 i switch from finding it meditative and relaxing to annoying)

Bostik makes a spray on product called glidecote (iirc, sp?) that is some sort of magic slippery stuff (probably a silicone) that doesn't leave a residue.

whether a traditional paste wax or the new fangled stuff (there's a few similar products, i've only tried the bostik version) the requirements (don't leave gunk, be slippery, don't add thickness) are very similar to what we want on a slippery/polished lock pick/rake.

[femurat]

It makes sense now. Thanks for the explanation.

Cheers

[smokingman]

I like turtle wax,hard shell finish.

[SixLever]

I see your point Jacob. You are a mechanic. Ask a clockmaker if he lubes clock gears. I know he doesn't.
I'm not a rake fan. I polish my picks and, from time to time, use some car body wax on them. I know this works very well. Your graphite idea may work too. I haven't tried it thought.

Cheers

Just for the sake of information, "gears" in timepieces do not need lubrication because they have a shape known as the epicycloidal curve, hence they roll rather than rub over the corresponding teeth.

[femurat]

Good to know