Circular Tension

[xodishox]

I've always wandered, how does a circular tension tool works?

[jason]

The underside (the bit facing the lock) has two wire prongs - these fit at the top and bottom of the keyway - your pick goes through the hole in the middle of the tension tool to pick.

IMHO a bit expensive for what it does - if I want tension at top and bottom I use a wishbone wrench but an ordinary wrench does the job just as well

[Peaky]

Use a big ballrace with a spring between the 2 diameters and 2 wires on the opposte side.

[digital_blue]

Peaky, could you clarify that a bit. For starters, what's a ballrace?

[Peaky]

Sorry about that,

Before i start i must say that this is actually an idea from a book i have,

A ball race is one of those bearings that have an outer ring and an inner ring with a cage of ballbearings in between.

The outer ring can be held stationary and the inner ring will be able to spin freely, you can get them in various materials even plastic but the balls tend to be steel in most types (ceramic balls are another common one)

If you imagine the inner ring to have the 2 pints that would fit the keyway,

The outer ring would need a spring attaching it to the inner ring so that when you held the inner ring and turned the outer ring, the outer ring would spring back, you could then put a scale on the edge of the outer ring to have an idea of tension.

If you are still struggleing i will find the text and pics and post them up, but it will be tomorrow.

[digital_blue]

No, that'll do. Thank you.

[MrB]

The second from last picture in this post

viewtopic.php?p=62261&highlight=#62261

looks like a very similar idea.

How well did it work?

[MrB]

OK just to avoid any confusion, I guess my last post was addressed to wallaby or toomush2drink. I should have been more clear.