Members Say Hi

[Reddirt204]

Hi All

I'm Reddirt from Western Australia, I work in the red dirt, mining iron ore

Locks were a real interest when I was younger (used to have a massive collection of old keys) I was always trying to see if I could open a lock (just trying keys..) recently I was at work and found a LeGard 4200 safe in our scrap bin!!!!!! looks like perfect condition (looks like it was left open and the combination was lost) it was to good to leave behind so onto Google and hunting around, it has sparked my interest again and here I am I probably won't have lot to contribute but will be doing heaps of learning and getting the LeGard working again

Cheers

Reddirt

[MrWizard]

Welcome

There is lots to learn here alright. Won't be long before you have something good to contribute I'm sure. That safe will be fun and easy since it is open. You look around on here you will find some help with figuring it out.

Richard

[Neilau]

Welcome to the interesting and fun world of locks.

Good score on the safe. Take the back off the lock and you'll be able to work out the combination.

A good way to contribute is to ask lots of questions. We all learn something from the answer ie. the recent thread on key retaining locks. I (and I'm sure others) learnt something from Mr Wizards explanation.

Lots of knowledge and help here.

PS Amazing country out there.

[Mike Looney]

How's it going! Happy picking from olympia Washington, USA.
Can't wait to pick all yall's brain. I have no answers but man do I have some stupid questions.
So brace yourself because I am green yet ambitious.
No key required!

[Mike Looney]

I want to give a shout out to my Canadian brother tpark. He has made me feel welcome and can't wait to pass on his good karma!

[Brule]

Howdy,

From Nebraska here and I just started a few months ago. I'm currently working on making my own picks, have the equipment gathered but apartment living and DIY do not mix. (Will be able to do more outside when this heat goes away) This has been something I wanted to do for years but only recently jumped into fully. My other interest of computer security has quite a bit of crossover. My biggest problem now is finding locks (reasonably cheap) that are not kwikset/masterlock/easily raked.

I love the technical aspects involved and have been absorbing all the info I can, including off of this forum. Thanks for all the help so far and it is a pleasure to be involved with you all.

[Oldfast]

Holy hell am I ever behind the 'welcome wagon' lol.

ratlock, Pick-Fu/Hick-Fu, Pick_Maker_416,
kd7mig, Nicolas, Brent, Reddirt, Mike, and Brule...

WELCOME! So nice to meet you all and see some new faces.

Pick_Maker - Can't wait to see pictures of some of your work.

Brule - ebay is your friend

And Brent

Hi, Brent from Canada here....
.....What type and brand of lock should I learn and practice on?

Your question maybe slipped through the cracks here. I'm sure others
will have more/better suggestions. Not sure if being in Canada will be
any different as far as brands. But I learned by progressively pinning
a Schlage deadbolt. That, and some Master Locks and Kwiksets.

[theothermatt]

Hello y'all. I'm Matt from Marysville, WA (about 2 hours south of Canada). I have been actively picking for about 6 months, but raked and bypassed my first locks many, many moons ago. Got interested in it as a hobby after watching BosnianBill humiliate a Master Lock on YouTube, I'm starting to make my own tools (necessity is a mother all right) and about to pin up my first training lock with security pins.

[Rjman36]

Hi from Seattle. New member and his dumpster diving safe.

I was thrilled when I found this site while looking for information on safe locks. I've read several threads and everyone seems very friendly and helpful...a rarity on many forums these days.

I am spanking new to this idea of safe manipulation and was in total awe when I watched a couple of oldfasts videos on youtube.

I'll be hanging out in the safe forum for now but in the future who knows...

[kickitabuck1]

Hello all,I`m Keith(kickitabuck) and I`m new to lock picking.I have a few pick sets.A few locks to pick and I think I`m hooked.Ready to learn and get better.

[Dronic]

Hello,

I'm Drew Gee and I have an "unhealthy" (LOL) interest in all types of mechanisms ranging from inert bomb fuzes, to clocks and of course now vintage locks.

Through some form of self discipline, I restrict my collecting interests to mainly inert ordnance including vintage torpedo fuzes (pre-1900) and have just published a 3 year research paper on the "Development in Whitehead Pistol Design from 1866-1918".
I stated "mainly" above as I do tend to find very unusual and interesting items and of course the Collector side wins out. I recently found in a flea market the attached Chubb Locking Bar, which from my initial searches, appears to be made around the 1930s (serial number range) and produced by Chubb's Victoria Street shop before it was destroyed in WW2.

As I have never seen one, nor familiar with this type of locking bar (used for garage doors), I decided to google seeking further information and came across your great site with an identical one posted a while ago.

In addition, I have an old vintage safe which was "unlocked" (the combination was not known at that stage) until my Son decided to close the door and play the "spin the wheel" game...........so now it is locked and has been in that state for almost 20 years........ perhaps get some ideas on how to tackle that one!

I look forward to conversing with fellow enthusiasts.

Cheers
Drew

[Oldfast]

Hey Drew! Very nice to meet ya and have you around here. I'm Mike.
You seem to be a very interesting & intricate fella... I think you'll fit right in

EDIT: Oh... Keith & Matt... hello to both of you as well. Sorry I missed you're arrivals.

[MartinHewitt]

Hi!

I am interested in security (mostly IT) more than halve of my life. From picking padlocks used in our relocation and now lying around unused I came to safe locks because I found in a pick supply shop a tools to open easily one of the safe locks in our company. That is a Kaba Mauer Code Combi B from before 2015. We had two safes with the "backdoor" locks (but one was replaced because of malfunction) and I am annoyed that none of the companies who sold us the safes gave us a notice of the problem. So it is better to know the weaknesses of safes. I will play a bit with combination locks because that is what most opening is about, but that will be tough because most locks available here are at least 2M. From UK ebay I got a 6741 which I will look at first. Most locks which I will actually use are lever locks and electronic locks. I am not an electronics guy, so electronic locks are not so interesting for me even so they probably have lots of weaknesses. So I am locking forward to pick lever locks. These are of the dual-bit type. Not so common in this forum, but anyway. I have a 7-lever lock to exercise and just need to make a 2-in-2 pick for it to start. If all goes well I will get in January a small and probably cheap safe with lever lock, which the employer of a friend got without key from the previous office owner. Hopefully I find someone who wants that safe once it is open. I found out that out alarm system provider also opens safes. I might get a chance there to be at a safe opening by drilling. I am also interested in Victorian stuff. So I found Pinkerton's book on criminals very interesting because he describes how to open a safe in Victorian time. Luckily there are so many nice historic safes! And also luckily not so many here in Germany, because safes are quite heavy and take up quite a bit space. Luckily there are some nice old padlocks. My favorite is my Sengpiel's Patent padlock which is probably from shortly after WWI.

Martin Hewitt (the detective character, not the actor! I love these old detective stories!)

[Oldfast]

Hello and Welcome Martin! You have a nice wide array of interests within the lock world.

I suppose that's one of the things that appeals to me about it too. There's so many
different facets of this hobby. Each is an art in and of itself. Life time(s) of learning.

Anyway, good to meet you... I'm Mike. Glad you're here.

[keyloser]

Hi.
I am not professional lockpicker, rather privacy, security and cryptography loving chemist / programmer. I realized that physical security matters as well, so I wanted to assess the security of my locks myself. And I was horrified. Especially the BULL SECURITY padlock was really bull****.
Down the rabbit hole.