When I was in High School I had a friend that had delinquent tendencies. One time he proclaimed to a group of us that he had sent away for a lock pick set and was expecting it any day. Without fail they arrived and we all marveled at these tiny super strong pieces of metal and the potential they held. A few of us would take turns trying to use them but the instructions were vague at best.
With practice and a ton of patience we were finally able pick our first
lock, and for me it ended there, just another experience to tuck away.
I was more into the challenge of picking the lock and not getting to
what was behind it. So, no juvenile arrests or detentions as a result
of our newly acquired hobby. If my memory serves me right, the most the
pick ever yielded was this candy that was a cheep ripoff of skittles.
Ultimately, that lock pick set was probably tossed in a drawer never to
see the light of day again.
What does this have to do with a Dremel? About a week ago my wife had some temporary workers get locked out their apartment and getting a locksmith seemed like a time consuming and expensive proposition, so I proclaimed I would build a lock pick. Sometimes things just pop out of my mouth. I have no excuse.
I
was finally going to use a Dremel that I bought for a Pinewood Derby
car. I needed to redeem myself, because the car was a total disaster.
After searching my toolbox for something I could fashion into a pick, I
gazed upon an old saw blade. It was perfect! Strong thin metal that was
still in the saw handle. Being in the handle was great because I didn't
need a vice to hold it while Dremeling. I had to dig deep to remember
exactly what the original looked like all those years ago, but in the
end I think I nailed it. I made a pick and this little L-bar that I
remembered was extremely important.
Lastly I did a simple google to look up lock picking pointers. I'm glad I did, because It really gave me some insight to a barrel lock. The type I was needing to work on.
I would love to say I walked in, picked the lock and got out, but that would be WRONG. Getting the feel for the inside of the lock me about a half an hour. After that, it was getting easy to worm my way around and feel the lock slowly giving way one pin at a time. After about 15 minutes the knob went slack and I thought I had achieved victory. In my excitement I let go of the knob, and it slipped into the locked position again. After another half hour I got the same result but this time I did not let go. Unfortunately, the door still remained locked. It was at this point that I realized I was turning the knob the wrong way! Rookie.
My
next attempt actually took longer, because I was going in a direction
that felt very uncomfortable and my pick needed to be in a different
position. It was about 40 minutes before the knob slipped away and that
door swung open in victory.
I spent a little over two hours fabricating and picking, and like my friends lock pick set, I will now retire these to a special place in my toolbox until needed again.
Leave me a comment! It's good Karma!
What does this have to do with a Dremel? About a week ago my wife had some temporary workers get locked out their apartment and getting a locksmith seemed like a time consuming and expensive proposition, so I proclaimed I would build a lock pick. Sometimes things just pop out of my mouth. I have no excuse.
I
was finally going to use a Dremel that I bought for a Pinewood Derby
car. I needed to redeem myself, because the car was a total disaster.
After searching my toolbox for something I could fashion into a pick, I
gazed upon an old saw blade. It was perfect! Strong thin metal that was
still in the saw handle. Being in the handle was great because I didn't
need a vice to hold it while Dremeling. I had to dig deep to remember
exactly what the original looked like all those years ago, but in the
end I think I nailed it. I made a pick and this little L-bar that I
remembered was extremely important.Lastly I did a simple google to look up lock picking pointers. I'm glad I did, because It really gave me some insight to a barrel lock. The type I was needing to work on.
I would love to say I walked in, picked the lock and got out, but that would be WRONG. Getting the feel for the inside of the lock me about a half an hour. After that, it was getting easy to worm my way around and feel the lock slowly giving way one pin at a time. After about 15 minutes the knob went slack and I thought I had achieved victory. In my excitement I let go of the knob, and it slipped into the locked position again. After another half hour I got the same result but this time I did not let go. Unfortunately, the door still remained locked. It was at this point that I realized I was turning the knob the wrong way! Rookie.
My
next attempt actually took longer, because I was going in a direction
that felt very uncomfortable and my pick needed to be in a different
position. It was about 40 minutes before the knob slipped away and that
door swung open in victory. I spent a little over two hours fabricating and picking, and like my friends lock pick set, I will now retire these to a special place in my toolbox until needed again.
Leave me a comment! It's good Karma!
Oh, and s/patients/patience/ ... unless you really did use a lot of patients, that is :-)
To answer your other question, yes you need two implements. If you look at the first picture in this post you will see both of them. The pick looks much like a dentist pick and is used to push up the pins. The L-shaped one is called the Tension wrench/Bar. By twisting it on the bottom of the keyhole it provides pressure to prevent the pins from dropping back down into position.
Hope that helps.
Another kid in the class also knew of lockpicking and had a paperclip on him, then we got a girl to give up her hair pin for a few mins and he applied the tension with the paperclip while I used the hairclip to get the lock open.
My teacher looked kind of un-nerved that two of her students had picked a lock, but she was also relieved that the portfolios were out.