New member!

[brazjol]

Hello! I'm new to the community, and thought I would make a post to say hello and to introduce myself. I've recently bought a 5-piece lockpick set from the internet and a cheap $5 tumbler pin lock at a local hardware store. I read on these forums here about adding and removing pins from a lock, and it surely helped, but then when I started (with 2 of them) it was extremely easy. Like even poking around at random, using no skill at all, the lock would unlock. Then I tried using 3 pins and it was hardly any tougher to open. Is this normal, or am I just a natural locksmith? Or maybe I have a crappy lock? I tried adding the fourth but accidentally put it in wrong and ruined two springs . Oh well, I think I'll go out and get a dead bolt lock tomorrow from Home Depot or something.

Also, does anyone know how to open an American Lock brand combination padlock?


Thanks!

[Mr Ules]

Welcome to the forum.
A piece of advice, don't just stick your pick in the lock and turn it and fumble around with it. Try imagining what your doing. Using your half round hook, depress each pin until you hear a click. Continue doing this until you can do it with five pins. The lock isn't cheap, but three pins is cheap, but it will help you get and understanding of how lockpicking works, and how to properly pick a lock.
American brand combination locks, as all combination locks have been a bit tricky. I've never defeated combination locks without distruction. The only other way would be to use a stethescope, but I've never tested the idea. And another reason it's not a necessity to crack these padlocks without distruction is because the tools need to defeat the lock would be more expensive than the lock itself. But if you want to try using a stethescope, keep me posted as to what the results are.

[vector40]

Understand that the goal of removing pins isn't to make it easier to "get the lock open" -- hell, you don't care, it's not even locking anything. Opening it without knowing what you're doing isn't just defeating the lock -- it's defeating the purpose.

The goal of fewer pins is to help make it easier to understand what you're doing, so that you can progressively scale it up to more and more pins until you're picking an actual lock, but still doing it with a knowledge of what's going on. You can "luck" a two-pin lock open, and you can do the same to a five-pin one, but that's not picking; that's stumbling.

[brazjol]

Oh, I think you misinterpreted what I was saying. I know what what to do and everything, because I've ton a bunch of reading and all of that, but I'm saying it's just so easy that even by fumbling around at random it could be unlocked. I know three pins are supposed to be easy, but I wasn't sure how easy. But also, I've just started picking, and I can already open my 3-pin lock in anywhere from 4 to 12 seconds.

[MrB]

The point is you are not supposed to open the three pin lock and be done with it, you are supposed to practice feeling the movement of the pins, and how to move each pin individually without disturbing any of the others, and how to tell by feel which of the three pins is the binding pin, and how to tell exactly when the pin is set, and how the feel of the pins varies when you vary the tension, and so forth.

If the lock suddenly opens and you didn't intend it to, you have failed the test by being too clumsy.

[brazjol]

I see. Yes, I've been observing all those things and practising as much as I can with my 3-pin lock. I'm hopefully going out tomorrow to get another lock so I can practice with more pins.

Thanks for the responses, guys.

[vector40]

I hear you, actually... one of the problems with using a really easy tumbler for your "learner" lock (removing pins and such, even cutting it out like I did) is that if it's TOO easy, you don't get too much from it; you stick your pick in ready to do some serious puzzle solving, and in the process of navigating it to the back of the lock, it comes open

Still a good place to start, and you can work your way up. I think I'm going to buy a new Schlage soonish and do another cutout.