First attempt at making a pick

Finding a banding material made of spring steel had me wanting to make my own pick. With the Sparrow Medusa being one of my favourites, I thought I would use it as a template to start.


The initial cut wasn't too bad. I made sure to leave lots of material to work with.


I then used a grinding bit and file to start making shape of the tip.


It's really starting to take shape here




At this point the tip is a bit long, but it works just as great as the original. I was really wanting to make it personable to me, so I started making a top hat in inspiration of Mad Hatter Labs.



At this point I was pretty happy with it. When originally starting with the banding it was .031 thick with coating, and I was able to bring it to .026 which allowed for clean movements.


After letting the paint dry I have been successful in picking and raking with this design.

Making A Spring Tensioner

The biggest challanges so far with lock picking would be tensioning. I have read from someone more experienced mentioning "picking locks is 80% tension, 20% pick". While I don't have the accredited experience to validate that completely, I can say that after gaining more control over my tension, my success rate has increased.

To work on the idea, I used a paperclip to mock up what I was after.


I was actually pretty happy with just the paper clip until I decided to try and quinch it to make it more ridged - failing horribly after not being able to give it even heat with my butane soldering torch, making it go softer rather than harder.

After loosing what actually was a decent tool to failure, I decided to make something else using a different material, and this is what I ended up with below.


To fabricate it, I used steel from a wiper blade found in the trash. This particular wiper had two smaller pieces rather than a single piece, which worked out to my benefit for smaller locks and TOK (top of keyway) tensioning. While I did cold bend this, my other tensioners I used a tea candle to add heat which turned out to be a better way to go. To achieve the some what of a circle, I used a smaller sharpie pen and bent it around. It did go as smooth as I would've like as the bending a crucial point didn't stay concentric with the pen, making it a bit off side.


I found having a 90 degree angle between the keyway and leveraging end was the best was to go, however have had instances where exceeding 90 degrees helped with lighter tension and control on more finicky locks. The nice thing is either way, you can lightly spread them apart or bring them together to change that with ease.

Over all, super happy with this tool and is very useful in the tool bag.

Squire LP10 Picked

When I first started learning lock picking, I quickly discovered that finding practice locks was half the challenge. I started asking friends, and family if they had any old or unwanted padlocks lying around.

One of my neighbors—who still insists some of my hobbies are a little unusual—had a Squire LP10 padlock securing a tow chain. The key had long since disappeared, and he jokingly said that if I could get it open, I could keep it.

Challenge accepted.

The lock had clearly spent years outdoors, so getting it moving freely took longer than actually picking it. After flushing it with engine degreaser and working some machine oil into the keyway, I was able to free up the pins enough to rake it open in under five minutes.

Once the chain was liberated, I returned it to my neighbour and gave the padlock a little restoration of its own. An hour soaking in CLR removed much of the corrosion, followed by a thorough drying and fresh lubrication. While it's hardly a high-security lock, bringing it back to life made it a great addition to the growing collection.

More importantly, it became another opportunity to practice single-pin picking and develop better feedback through the lock. Every lock has its own personality, and even inexpensive padlocks like this are valuable learning tools.

Specifications

• Model: Squire LP10
• Body: 50 mm solid brass
• Shackle: Hardened steel
• Pins: 4-pin mechanism

One week of lock picking

I am now about a week deep into lock picking, gaining a lot of great experience and insight along the way. After finding some great material online to learn more about the techniques and tools involved, I began the process with an affordable Lock Picking Set on Amazon.


Luoke Home Maintenance Emergency Open Set Included with the kit was an acrylic lock


The acrylic lock is an excellent added feature to the already inexpensive kit, giving you the opportunity to study the inner workings and served further while identifying what techniques were effective and why.

After playing with the acrylic lock for a while, I tried my hand at few inexpensive pad locks from various sources and determined that just about every common lock could be raked with a combination of picks and tension feathering.


I started to focus and develop the skill at single pin picking and began reworking the locks pin by pin trying to identify binding pins and setting them. This has come a long way in a few short days.

I have been stuck up against one lock that I had got from work with a missing a key, an American A1100.


In this picture I was still trying to tension from the bottom keyway, which I later acknowledged isn't typically done with these locks. My A1100 is a 5 pin with serrated pins and has proven to be too difficult for me at this time. I believe it has to do with my tensioning technique on it, so I have played with the idea of a spring tensioned tensioner.


I felt I had more control and comfort for the top keyway in manipulating the pins, however I still was unsuccessful. While I have made tremendous progress, at this point I am having a difficult time at identifying false sets and sets with the serrated pins, so I decided to keep the forward momentum and try my way at a few residential locks to continue working on single pin picking.

I did a bit of digging and thrift shopping and found a few locks missing keys or parts for cheap. I had thought about making a stand for the handles and latch, but I instead designed a barrel to whole the lock itself so i could continue to picks locks on the couch.



After completing the design and having one in my hand around 2 am, I made a few changes to it and printed a couple more.

I am looking to make a few changes, however it is nice having something to hold on to while working on these residential locks.