.:: Keypicking :: Anything And Everything For Locksmiths, Hobbyist Lock Pickers, Locksport, Lock Picking, lockpicks, cutaways and Security. Simply The Best Lockpicking Forum Around!

Ok, thought I'd post all my present and future manipulation journeys in this one post starting with this:


The back is cut open, as I was originally making a display out of it, but I intend to cover this with paper to discourage my cheating!


I wanted something to practice on that I didn't feel a need to rush on, so this old floor safe lid is an appropriate candidate. Had my girlfriend change the combo to something I don't know, and it's written down and stashed away. I got this from an old restaurant that was being turned into a plasma center. I saw it sitting by the front door as I walked by and knew I had to have it. Luckily, the contractors had already filled in the hole and said I could take it, as it was no use to them!

So begins my journey into what I hope to be fun and learning...

Awesome!

Let us know how it goes! That was a great find!

I'll definitely keep everyone posted, but I will be taking my time on this one. And I was happy to have gotten it. It's been sitting on my floor for probably 5 years or more!

Tell us more as you learn more. Inquiring minds want to know!

Gordon

nice find, phoneman.what you have is major's 'new' style (late '80's) lift-out door with a LaGard (longer than normal) key-change wheel pack. good luck.

Thanks Bitbuster, cool to know! Hopefully I'll start on it today, been busy as can be.

try
left 10
right 20
left 30

My wife would say she changed the combo and then leave it right in front of me, only to have a laugh.

That was the old combo I set, she did change it.

Ok, my first graph, much more promising than the other ones!:


I still have difficulties with the charts, and I think I got this backwards, but I did see a big difference at around 55-65 and around 88-0 looks interesting for the LCP.

Well, regardless of how you did it, I definitely see your touch is improving! You've got some good variation there.

As far as your graph being backwards? For me it is, yes. But for the next guy it might be the right way.
It all depends on what you consider the left & right CP's to be, lol. EITHER way will work just fine though.

One thing I'm not sure about is how you marked out your initial contact points? You put 14.75 and 5.75 for the
left and right CP's, then filled the adjacent boxes using quarter increments.... i.e. 14.5, 14.75, 15, 15.25, 15.5.
This makes for EXTREMELY small divisions for your readings. What was your train of thought here?

The norm is to round to the nearest whole number. So if your initial CP was 14.75, you'd put 15 in that box,
then fill in the others using whole numbers as well. So you'd have 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. Same for your other
one - your initial CP was 5.75? Then use 6. So you'd have 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Now, the 3 lines you have in between each whole number would represent 1/4, 1/2, 3/4. This means you've
broken down one increment into fourths. For more precise readings, you can break it down further into eighths.
In order to do this, you'd place your marks halfway between each of those lines. Take this graph for example.....



If you look at zero. I've marked directly between 96 and 96 1/4 ...... this represents 96 1/8.
Or how about 44 to 56? Marks between 96 1/2 and 96 3/4 ..... that represents 96 5/8
Later, you can worry about even more precision by division in tenths.

I see what you mean, the left contact point would normally be the one you find when dialing left, that's how I got it backwards. (Duh!)



I was told by someone on here to do it in quarter increments, but the first one I ever did (the drop safe) was in whole increments, as it even says that on the charts. I also see that as you mentioned, the quarter increments are already marked on the chart.
Also, I heard you need to go in 2's on the dial, like try 0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, etc. Is this right?

Now amplifying is what I'm going to need help on, I understand the basics, but not much.

I just do the contact point with nearest whole number otherwise it gets too confusing for me, then I got with each line is 1/4 of an increment. And yeah, I go 2.5 increments when mapping the wheel pack. 2.5, 5, 7.5, etc. Amplification is just going through an area of good indication but going every 1 increment. I.e. Take contact points at 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 if 7.5 - 10 is indicating. It's just to lessen the errors and find the middle of the gate instead of guessing and actually be placing the gate off center from the fence. Hope that helped!