difficulty locating pins with pick and detecting pin state

[Varjeal]

That's a good point actually. Sometimes merely exchanging picks and using the same technique opens a lock.

Right now my soul-picks are the new Peterson's I acquired from lock_assassin. I haven't NOT been able to pick a Schlage in under 3 minutes yet.

[lplink]

Thanks for the responses.

digital_blue: I agree completely regarding the clear lock.

vector40: one of my biggest problems now (with both the clear lock and the kwikset) is getting all the pins to _approximately_ the shear line, but not exactly. When I look at the clear lock in this condition, it _looks_ like all the pins are at the shear line, but the lock still doesn't open until I fiddle with all the pins for a while and happen by luck to hit the one(s) that is snagging. So at the moment, even using the clear lock the way it's supposed to be used doesn't help me. Maybe if I position a high power magnifying glass over it while I'm working...

digital_blue: the spring tension in the kwikset doesn't seem to be a problem. The springs provide plenty of feedback (on unset unbiding pins); it was set (or nearly set) pins that I was having difficulty locating, since there's nothing to feel except a loose key pin.
Regarding pick position, I have been keeping the handle tilted no higher than level, as you suggest. There are two wards, and I insert the pick along the top of the bottom ward, as this is the lowest position where I can insert the pick and still reach the pins (if I insert beside the bottom ward, the top ward gets in the way, and it's not just difficult, but impossible to reach the pins). I then pivot the pick on the front of the bottom ward.

Rowlock: the "deep hook" pick which I'm using is the tallest one I have, so I couldn't substitute a taller one even if I wanted to. Fortunately, the pick I'm using seems to be the ideal size for the kwikset; when I insert it horizontally along the top of the bottom ward, the tip contacts the pins and very slightly bumps each one up as I slide the pick in.
The pick has a vertically thin tang, which helps to avoid disturbing forward pins too much when manipulating rearward pins, yet even with an ideal tang of infinitesimal vertical thickness, it would still disturb forward pins a little, with the result that when I try to get tactile feedback from rearward pins, I necessarily get unwanted tacticle feedback from forward pins at the same time. I want a hydraulic pick with a coaxial tip, so I can insert the pick horizontally under the pins and then have a pin extend from it vertically straight up to push up the key pin above it...

As for the keying depth, interestingly, all five key pins are one of just two lengths: 5mm and 6mm. The keying is: 5, 6, 5, 6, 5. Therefore with just the three forward pins which I have installed now, the lock opens with the key inserted either all the way or 3/5 of the way. I wonder whether all kwiksets (or at least of this particular model) use just two depths; in a kwikset neighborhood with 33 houses, at least two would be keyed alike.

digital_blue: good idea about marking the pick, but fortunately no longer necessary, as I can now pretty reliably (though slowly) find pins even by just the faint feel of loose key pins. And as I side benefit, if I can't feel the key pin, I know that the pin is overset. This helps greatly when I get to the point (as I frequently do) where all the pins are approximately at the shear line but at least one is not exactly there; I simply count the loose key pins, and if I can find them all, it means I can continue fiddling with the pins trying to open the lock, and if I can't find them all, then I know that I have to release torque (typically completely, and start over).
However, since by pivoting the pick on the front of a ward, the tip moves in an arc, I have to slightly slide the pick further into the keyway as I pivot up in order to move the tip straight up. When doing this against a loose key pin, with no tension as a guide to warn me if the tip slips off the pin, it's very difficult to keep the tip vertically aligned under the pin as I push up. Therefore, when I finally feel resistance of some sort, I don't know whether I'm hitting a single pin or hitting between two pins. This, combined with the inevitable unwanted tacticle feedback from forward pins, makes it very difficult to correctly diagnose the state of rearward pins.


I sometimes get the lock in a state which I don't understand at all: after fiddling with the lock for a while, a pin, normally the front one, will get in the state where the driver pin is held partway up, with the key pin loose beneath it, but when I push the key pin to the driver pin and try to push further, I get neither squishy resistance, as from a binding pin, nor unyielding resistance, as from a set pin, but _springy_ resistance! And I can let the key pin fall down, then push it again up to the driver, and then again push further and again feel springy resistance from the driver. I understand theoretically how that could happen, but it seems about as likely as dropping one basketball on another and having it bounce on it repeatedly without falling off. This is a standard cheap kwikset deadbolt, and I've verified that all the key and driver pins are standard cylindrical pins, and there's nothing funky about the springs either. What's going on inside the lock?

[digital_blue]

lp. It sounds like you are progressing very nicely! Well done. With the amount of thought you are obviously putting to this, there is no doubt that you'll be a resident expert here in no time at all! Great work!

As for your pin dilema, I'm not sure what to make of it. Theoretically speaking, if there was a ver slight imprefecion in the pin chamber causeing the upper part of the chamber to have a slightly larger diameter than the lower portion, I could see the potential for the driver pin to not actually be binding, but be able to fall down partly into the chamber, but not as far as it would with not tension at all. Then, when you apply upward force on the keypin, it would be met with the springy resistance that is typical with no tension, but when you release, again, the driver would stay partly elevated. As I say, this is purely theoretical to me. I've neve rhad it happen, but I can imagine tha wear from the pins might slightly enlargen the pin chambers uppermore portion. Just a though, I don't know if there's anything to this.

As always, keep us up to date with your progress. I love hearing about ones victories!

db

[zekeo]

I think you are using too much tension. You shouldn't have to be that exact with the shear line--with gentle tension it will just slide into place. As a beginner, I know that it feels wrong to use light tension, but I've also found that most of my problems go away by lightening up. Try it and let us know what happens. A Kwikset with that keying should open very easily.
To figure out an idea of the upper limit of tension you should be using, use the MIT method of putting on heavy tension while deliberately oversetting all the pins. Gradually release your tension until all the pins drop. This is the ABOLUTE MAXIMUM amount of tension you should be using.

[lplink]

digital_blue: I bought the lock new just a few days ago, and haven't beat it up _that_ much (!), so any such imperfection you mentioned would have to be a manufacturing defect, not caused by wear from use. Anyway, as the phenomenon was occuring while I was applying torque, another pin was necessarily binding at the time; otherwise, the funky pin (or pin in the funky chamber) would bind despite the imperfection. Another possible explanation I just thought of is that maybe instead of a chamber problem, it could be that the key pin is slightly smaller in diameter than the driver pin. But neither your explanation nor mine explains why I only sometimes experience this, rather than always. The idea that I had in mind when I posted my previous message was that there was nothing abnormal about the chamber or pins but that I'd simply managed to get the driver set but cocked slightly at an angle, so that it remained set even when I accidentally slightly turned the plug back, allowing sufficient space for me to then push the key pin up into the hull. I wrote that that was very improbable because for me to be able to feel the springiness halfway up repeatedly, rather than just once, the driver would have to keep landing cockeyed on the edge of the top of the plug chamber every time I pushed up and released, rather than ever falling through the chamber.
So the explanation for what I'm actually experiencing is still a mystery.

zekeo: I'm fairly sure that overall I'm using sufficiently light torque, based on a couple indicators:
1. Occasionally when I first apply torque and test for the first binding pin, there is no binding pin. I torque a little harder, and voila, there's a binding pin.
2. Very often while I'm trying to set the second or third pin, a previously set pin drops.

But I decided to do the bind-all-the-pins test anyway as you recommended, just out of curiosity, and... it #@$!ing made me mad! I flipped my pick upside down, stuck in, raised it up a ways (not all the way just because I was being lazy), torqued in order to bind the pins, and the lock opened! I knew that of course it was a fluke, but just to be sure, I reset the lock, and within a couple tries, did it again! And then after trying several more times, yet again.
And the least time it's ever taken me to pick it the right way has been at least half a minute, and usually at least a couple minutes, if I'm even successful at all.
But that did provide me a very useful piece of information: based on my knowledge of the keying, and that I was using the flat side of the pick, I now know that I can have the pin stacks' cuts miss the shear line by an entire millimeter and the lock can still open.
And then I immediately hypothesized that I could pick the lock by simply inserting the pick upside down under the pins, applying torque, and raising the pick until the lock opened. I tried it, and... it worked. So I can now reliably pick this lock (with 3 pins, at least; haven't tried with all 5) within just a couple seconds.
Yet I still can't pick it reliably, much less quickly, the right way.
I did go back and do the bind-all-the-pins test, pushing the pins all the way to the top before applying torque, and verified that the minimum torque needed to bind all 3 pins is much more than I'm using while attempting to pick the lock.
The fact that I can miss by an entire millimeter and still open the lock doesn't jive with my experience of repeatedly getting all the pins what feels like almost exactly to the shear line but still being unable to open the lock. But then I realized why: although the driver pins are almost exactly cylindrical, the key pins are noncylindrical enough to make a difference. When I first examined the pins, I assumed that the noncylindricity of the key pins was minor enough that it would be irrelevant, but now I realize that I was wrong (and I should have realized this in the first place).
The ends of the driver and key pins look roughly like this, respectively (monospace font required):

------------------ ------------
/ \ / \
| | / \
| | / \
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |

That slope on the key pin extends vertically about 700 microns (on the driver it's only about 300). Thus if the driver pins are more than just slighly below the shear line, the lock won't open, but the key pins can be substantially above the shear line and the lock will still open, because the key pins can slide out of the way. In addition to explaining why I can open the lock by just torquing and then crudely shoving all the pins upward at the same time with the back of my pick, this also explains why I'm having such a hard time setting pins and detecting whether pins are set: pushing up on a set pin doesn't result in hard resistance of the key pin against the hull, but squishy resistance as the key pin begins to slide like a wedge between the edge of the plug chamber and the edge of the hull chamber. And this also explains why I keep accidentally dropping set pins so often: as I push up on a set pin, it feels a bit squishy, so I think it's not set, so I push further, and as the key pin squeezes its way up, it forces the plug to turn back slightly, which is enough to allow other set drivers to drop back down. This at least makes me feel better to know that I haven't been just imagining things when I think I sometimes feel backward force on my torque wrench as I push a pin up.

So, you all lied; kwiksets are NOT good beginner practice locks.
Where do I get truly _cylindrical_ pins?

[lplink]

Ooh, let's try that ASCII art one more time:

Code: Select all

  ------------------            ------------
 /                  \          /            \
|                    |        /              \
|                    |       /                \
|                    |      |                  |
|                    |      |                  |
|                    |      |                  |


[zekeo]

A couple things: The fact that the pins are not "truly cylindrical" is necessary for the lock to stand up to years of use. Even on higher quality locks the pins still have this allowance. This actually makes the lock easier to pick because you do not need to be so precise with your picking.

The fact that you picked the lock with the back of your pick does not change the fact that you picked the lock. Congratulations! Don't worry so much about the details, and put in one or two more pins and give it another go. If you can pick it with the back of your pick, you should be able to do it with the front--just stay at the proper height and go back and forth until the lock turns. I still think you are over-thinking things. Keep it simple!

[lplink]

Ah, progress...

Keeping in mind my analysis above, I just now picked the lock in both directions several times with a fairly high success rate. It's particularly helpful to understand that back torque on the torque wrench means that the pin I'm testing is set.

One of the most annoying things now is the vibration of a binding pin as I slide it up; it goes bump-bump-bump up to the shear line, then goes BUMP! as it sets, and the tip of my pick lurches upward and shoves the key pin partway up the hull chamber, which jerks the plug back in the wrong direction, and a previously set pin falls.
Would it help to dump some graphite in there?

[vector40]

I've also noticed that often a non-picking lock will actually be very close to picked, with just a few miniscule deviatons from proper pin height. At that point, some light scrubbing sometimes does the trick, though it's important to keep tension low; either that or just do the usual feel-for-what's-binding routine.

[Varjeal]

lplink: I wouldn't advise the use of graphite in your lock, especiallly since it seems to be one you use for picking practice frequently. If you need to lubricate the lock use a silicon or teflon (PTFE) spray that will lubricate as well as leave the lock clean. You really don't want to mess with graphite powder...hehehe..

Also, it's not a lubrication problem that you have, but a minor lack of sensory touch, which you will develop through practice. Keep at it, sounds like your doing well.

[digital_blue]

lp: It sounds like you're doing great! To be honest, I don't think I can really add anything valuable. You are doing what we're all here to do... namely picking locks! Way to go!

db

[lplink]

vector40: how do you manage to get your locks into the state of having the pins almost picked, but with small deviations from the proper height? Specifically, does this happen for you with plain locks with cylindrical pins and no special security features? If the lock is being picked properly, I don't understand how it can happen; with proper torque, only one pin binds at a time, and while the pin is being lifted, the plug rotates and binds the next pin when and only when the pin currently being lifted becomes successfully set. It seems to me that the only possible cause of the problem is a combination of failing to properly recognize when a pin becomes set and of torquing too hard (with the excessive torque binding another pin even though the first one's not yet set).

Varjeal: I know nothing about lubricating locks. Why would graphite cause problems? And would lubricating the lock in any way affect the feel of lifting binding pins while picking?

digital_blue: how does the picking sequence actually normally go for an experienced picker with an easy pin tumbler? The textbook algorithm is torque 'till one pin binds, lift it until its resistance sharply increases and the plug turns very slightly, then lift the next binding pin, etc, and upon setting the last pin, the lock opens, so other than testing for binding pins, each pin is manipulated only once. How reliably can an experienced picker do that, as opposed to what I do, i.e. manipulate each pin multiple times while trying to open the lock?

I'm presently operating under the assumption that until I can reliably open the lock by manipulating each pin only once, I don't have a proper feel for what's going on inside the lock.


BTW I've moved up to 4 pins now, and can only rarely pick it successfully. Even with all my practice so far, and everything I understand about the lock, my number one difficulty is recognizing a set pin, either while I'm trying to set it or after the fact. Fortunately now I can at least pretty reliably find the pins regardless of their states, even with 4 pins.

[vector40]

Well, I was referring to a similar phenomenon as you described, with the clear cutaway. Obviously, you aren't ACTUALLY at the shear line; by definition, if you were, the plug would turn. But you're close enough that the problem isn't even visible (and this is with a lock where you CAN stare right at it), so it's awfully small potatoes.

I guess it's the case where one edge of one pin has just barely snagged on the plug, or some such thing; it's not even "crossing" the plug/shell shearline, it's just sort of being difficult. We use the fact that the materials in the cylinder are hard, relatively unyielding metal as our greatest resource when picking the lock, because any minute manufacturing imperfections become resources; if everything were made out of cookie dough, the imperfections we rely on would be smudged over. But it's just as true that, even on a relatively poor lock with lousy tolerances, issues on such a small scale can work AGAINST us, and the plug can be prevented from turning by... the equivalent of a mouse hair in a car engine. If the mouse hair was made of steel, you could imagine this.

Anyway, in short, you're right: the theory is fairly universally accurate, as far as it goes. I'm just saying that the actual way it applies can sometimes be rather silly and involve stupid tiny variables that you aren't accounting for. That's basically what practice is for; you're teaching your "muscle memory" patterns of recognition-and-response for answering situations in a lock that may very well be as dumb as a mouse hair in the tumbler... but if your fingers know what to do, then they can handle it. (And if you can translate that stuff into words, then you'll have a lockpicking guide worlds more useful than the "basic theory" stuff usually used.)

[digital_blue]

digital_blue: how does the picking sequence actually normally go for an experienced picker with an easy pin tumbler? The textbook algorithm is torque 'till one pin binds, lift it until its resistance sharply increases and the plug turns very slightly, then lift the next binding pin, etc, and upon setting the last pin, the lock opens, so other than testing for binding pins, each pin is manipulated only once. How reliably can an experienced picker do that, as opposed to what I do, i.e. manipulate each pin multiple times while trying to open the lock?

Well, for starters, you will have to try as many as all the pins at least once to find the binding pin. Assuming you catch it on the first try, and are successful in setting that pin, you now have to try as many as the rest of the pins to find the one that will bind next. This often means going back over pins you tried last time to see if they bind this time. The whole business in real time is a bit of a fishing exposition. Add to that the fact that you will invariably set a pin or two accidently as you're moving the pick around in the keyway and that, in the same manner, you may bump a pin and overset it, and you have for an intersting hobby full of variables. In a perfect world you would still have to feel out any given pin multiplke times before you it set properly. The exception, of course, is that on a cheap lock in particular it can be common (though not always) that the pins set in an order like 12345 or 54321. In that case, picking can happen a whole lot quicker.
As well, if you are dealing with a lock with a key code something like 45454, a simple brush of the pick alond the pins with light tension will cause it to pop open. The bottom line is that you will develop your own techniques and feel for the lock with practice. Nobody here can teach you that. Only the locks can.

I'm presently operating under the assumption that until I can reliably open the lock by manipulating each pin only once, I don't have a proper feel for what's going on inside the lock.

I dissagree. When you feel a pin, if it isn't binding, you have to move on. Next time you come back to it, it may not be binding, so you move on again. If you knew in advance the order that the lock would be picked in, this could be true. But in reality, you don't.

BTW I've moved up to 4 pins now, and can only rarely pick it successfully. Even with all my practice so far, and everything I understand about the lock, my number one difficulty is recognizing a set pin, either while I'm trying to set it or after the fact. Fortunately now I can at least pretty reliably find the pins regardless of their states, even with 4 pins.

Keep at it. You are going through the process of developing the feel. You can't be told how to do that. You are obviously learning, so be happy in that. Vector is right when he talks about muscle memory. Nothing he, I, or anybody writes here will teach your muscles the intricacies of lockpicking. Just keep doing it. You are progressing nicely.

db

[zekeo]

On the subject of how many times you need to touch each pin to pick the lock: even very talented pickers take anywhere from 15 seconds to a few minutes to open all but the most simple locks. This time is spend going back and forth finding the binding pins, not thinking really hard about what order to try them in. You are developing a feel for the lock when you can start opening it consistantly and quickly, not when you only have to manipulate each pin once.