Rubber handles on or off the picks?

[digital_blue]

I'm a little afraid of what's coming when "those" kids hit the real world. I'm afraid that, when faced with real genuine challengs of life, and backed only by a wishy washy moral relativism, they grasp immediately for the easy way out, namely crime and violence. I mean, really, if everybody is a victim and nobody is accountable, then what stops anyone from reverting to dog-eat-dog. Yuck. As much as I don't look forward to it, every day I'm more convinced it's coming.

BTW: Sorry for the post hijack here, but I think it was pretty much a dead thread anyway.

db

[raimundo]

right you are rommy, here in the US, the republicans used to about political correctness, when they were all 'politics of personal distruction' but now they preach it to everyone who criticizes even slightly their evil subversion of the bill of rights.

[jessopher]

Would you really feel clicking of pins on the skin on your fingers anyway? I would think that you would probably feel it most in the bones of your fingers, and since it is you actually moving the pick, in your knuckles and wrists. The click of a pin in a lock, or the scraping of the tip of the pick against the surfaces in the keyway are probably too low frequency to even resonate until they are well into your hand. Or maybe i just made that up

[MrB]

The finger tips have the most delicate sense of touch of almost any part of the body. If you are going to feel something slight, I think you will feel it with your finger tips.

[jessopher]

But what you are feeling isnt something going on on the surface of your skin, its something going on on the oposite side of a ridgid object that you are griping firmly. I usually put a finger on the shaft of the pick, not to get more feedback from it, but just to better control it. Maybe touching the bare metal does do something, having one less layer of material between whatever part of your hand is actually doing the feeling, and the stuff inside the lock that is being felt, will probably help either way. But as for specifically worrying about the sensitivity of your fingertips.. *shrug*, I dunno.

To me, which may not be the general case, the 'feeling' is more about the way the pick responds to being used than the way it transmits anything back to my fingers. Though im not positive, im pretty sure i feel the response of the pick with the parts of my hand that do the picking, my knuckles, and wrist.

[jessopher]

Ok ok, here, an example, say you stick your hand in a black box, and you feel around, and you discover that there is a tennis ball in the box. You may have been able to tell that it was fuzzy by what you directly sense with your fingertips, but you would not beable to tell that its rubbery. That kind of sensation is determined by nerves in your joints that relay information back to your brain about their orientation, resistance to muscle strain, and the fact that the ball sprung back when you squeezed it. You wouldn't feel things like the sprinyness of an unset pin stack, or the slight rotation of the plug with your fingertips, they are things that effect the oreintation your hands and all of their tiny parts. They do not nessesarily effect the stimulus to the flesh on your fingertips though.

[digital_blue]

I think you need to release the death grip you have on your picks. Seriously, the key would be a very light touch. You will pick up vibrations that run through the pick as they encounter a "stick and give" of pins dragging through the pin chambers. As the pin stack in question reaches the shear line, the slight give that the plug makes as it turns that fraction of a fraction of an inch is what will vibrate through the pick, and be sensed by your finger tips. If you are gripping your picks with too much force, it will lessen your sensitivity of touch and be a detriment to your picking prowess.

db

[jessopher]

I say firmly, as in, firm enough for the pick not to fall out of your hand. It isnt that you dont feel vibrations with your fingertips when picking, just the feedback i use to feel out a lock is something else.

I just recently put some of that dipgrip junk on my homebrews' handles, and though they feel a little odd, more than likely just out of novelty, ive not really lost anything in the way of proficiency in picking (which isnt all that remarkable to begin with, granted), or the fidelity of the feedback i feel. I noticed a post about someone who used 'thick foam grips'. Now to me, it seems if the feedback you got from the lock was mostly minute vibrations, you would be completely unable to pick while using them, or atleast severely handicapped.

I like making analogies, sorry, but here goes. Say you are going to 'watch' a movie. Would you rather be blind, or be deaf (no lip reading, and the movie isnt pornographic!)? Now, that may not have seemed very relevant, but i think the whole vibrations thing is allot like the visual portion of the movie. Informative, but not completely nessesary, maybe even distracting, and almost useless on its own. The plot is in the dialogue.

Maybe im way off the mark. I honestly just dont find the acoustics of lock picking all that helpful.

[digital_blue]

Um, well, yeah, but I wasn't saying anything about the acoustics of picking. I agree with you completely if your point is that hearing a lock is secondary at best. My point was that I don't think I agree about the idea that the feeling is picked up in the joints as in your tennis ball analogy. I think that the physical cues a very delicate, perhaps too delicate to feel in the way you describe. I think that anything that absorbs the vibrations along the pick body before it reaches the sensitive finger tips would be a detriment to your picking.

I also wouldn't say it can't be done, or that it would make it nearly impossible. I'm sure many people out there are picking with all kinds of crazy things on their pick handles. If you like analogies, imagine those times where you're in a shop and the music is on so quietly you have to strain to make out the lyrics, or even what song is on. It's not that it isn't there, but wouldn't it be better if you could just turn up the volume a bit? Bare handles are like "turning up the volume" on the *feel* (not the sound) of picking.

db

[MrB]

The one thing with a better sense of touch than your finger tips is your tongue. Someone once jokingly suggested you should press your tongue against the lock when you are picking it so you can better feel the vibrations of the pins clicking into place.

[jessopher]

By acoustics i just meant the movement of vibrations, up the pick, or through the tension tool. Maybe some of the feedback is too minute to be directly noticed, but you have to remember, both tools are basically levers, the movement in the lock, and the rotation of the plug are amplified considerably before they get to the hand.

[Flo]

Skold, you said your fingers are sensitive and usefull for opening combo locks, whats your method in doing so...

[omelet]

I know something more sensitive than my tongue, but I wouldnt recommend picking like that for a locksmith, you might not get repeat customers...

But really, has anyone tried putting their tongue on the pick while picking? I just tried and can't feel anything at all, so much for that theory.

[aviator151]

i've just started out recently and have noticed a decrease in feedback when using rubber handles. I jammed one onto my half diamond rake and just got fed up and cut the excess off. I can still get some feedback, but I keep my hook picks bare to get the most feeling with them.

[kodierer]

Those vinyl/rubber handles are not only difficult to get on, but difficult to get off. Also your picks won't fit in your case once they are on.