New At Picking(just started tonight!!!)

[Dent]

Here is what I am starting with(ordered piece by piece, so no case yet):





So I took out all but one pin and worked up from there.

Practicing at each level for about 30 minutes, I can get the full 5 pins pretty quickly...

However I am having one trouble with that the first pin towards the keyhole is extremely high and hard to set, especially with tension wrench...

But anyway, thought I should post, now that my picks and stuff came in I am going to be practicing non-stop

[Geek142]

Hey dent,

Well you look like you are off to a good start and hope your picking goes well. You should try making your own case its quite fun acctually because you can make it how you want it and not how southord has designed them, IMO i dont really like the southord cases they feel to fiddly for me so i just use cases i have made

Good luck and i hope everything goes well and just a note you should give pickmaking a go as well there is no better reward creating your own picks and opening a lock with them when you hear the sound of the lock open i call it the sound of victory

Cya

[Geek142]

I am not sure about your problem and what i would try is with a tall hook pick and see if it work but i am not 100% sure what to do it might help anyways

Cya

[master in training]

what are you using to pick the lock? the tension wrench shouldn't really be causing you that much trouble in setting the front pin (i actually wrote the front pint then, is my mind somewhere else or what?!). eve if the front pin is high, it should still be relatively easy to set, since its really the one with the most access, try and explain the problem futher and you may get a better response (mine are pretty much useless!), all i can recommend is using a pick with a fairly long reach, for example a hood or a large diamond as opposed to a slim line S rake.


~ Master in Training ~

[master in training]

my typing skills are getting worse, two mistakes i spotted in that!

it should read: "even if the front pin is high"
"for example a hook"


~ Master in Training ~

[vector40]

Have you got your tension wrench inserted at the "top" (the pin side) of the plug? If you have, and it's touching the front pin, it can interfere with its setting.

... so I'm told, anyway. I've never found that to be the case, but then, I've never been any good at putting my wrench there.

[master in training]

to be honest, i always thought it was "wrong" to put your tension wrench in the top of the lock, i always thought it was supposed to go in the bottom. i dont see how you can put it in the top (the pin side) and still pick the lock, it would surely interfere with the pins!

[vector40]

No, I gather a lot of very skilled pickers prefer it that way. It does make sense, which is why I'm trying to improve at it -- you almost always need more space in there, and getting your wrench entirely out of the main area of the keyway is the best possible way to do so... if, again, you can keep it in.

I trimmed down the working end of one of my wrenches; that helps, with the very short "inserted" area at the top.

[master in training]

hmmm, i can see why thats a good point, i've seen a tool before for tightening certain types of bolt, but it looked like the would be good for a tension wrench with some modification, it was basically an arm with a c shape the the end, like this --------c going off the c at right angles were a little bar, if these could be made very thin and short, one could go in the top of the lock, one in the bottom, leaving the entire keyway and lock area free to work on. im pretty sure the idea had been thought up before, but i've never seen a wrench like it.

[zekeo]

On the subject of that front pin, (I knowt this is simple, but it's helped me out as a beginner) if you place your pick all the way in and then give your tension wrench a little push away from the proper direction to unset any pins it make it easier to start with the rear pins.

[digital_blue]

master: Check out this link. Is this close to what you had in mind?

http://security.org/dial-60/Lss/Images/FIG29-17.jpg

db

[master in training]

thats sort of it, but not quite, i'll see if i can make up a design of what i thought of and post it so you can see what i mean.

thats the basic idea though, that it fits in the top and bottom and allows the lock to be turned.

[master in training]

this is sort of it, but the picture is awful as always, i will do my best to explain it.

WARNING: the picture is quite big!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v727/masterintraining/tensionwrenchdesign.jpg

basically, when the blue bit is moved left to right, the red bits move up and down (away from each other and closer together), this gives the ability to change how far apart they are so it can fit different locks. the yellow bits are simply a way of securing it so that the distances dont change while its being used. the green bits just show roughly where it would be riveted. the orange pins are interchangeable so that you can have different pins for different locks, longer shorter, thicker, thinner etc.

i hope this explains the picture a bit, it might be a totally useless idea, but its just something i came up with when i was sitting around waiting for my pc to load!


~ Master in Training ~

[frostbyte]

Like any of these?

http://www.hpcworld.com/Picks/p_stw.htm
http://www.lockpicktools.com/tensiontools.htm
http://www.spyemporium.com/locksmith_auto_tension_tool_rl10.html

[master in training]

they are similar admittedly, but still not exactly what i pictured when i thought of it, i've never seen those before, so i was making it up as i went along, my idea seems similar to those already in production, but not the same, possibly for a good reason but i dont know, so i'll forget about it for a while and most likely see the picture in a few years and think about it again.