Howdy Guys and Gals.
Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2012 1:40 pmJust wanted to say a quick hello to everyone, it seems I need to make some lock picking friends on the web, because most of the people I know think I'm nuts.
I've been picking locks for a bit over 2 months now, and have really been enjoying myself. I got into picking as an attempt to bring some style to my job working in maintenance ( been there for about a year now). Our doors are mostly master keyed IC cores but, we also have a lot of community mail boxes that the tenants constantly lose the keys to. The standard procedure for dealing with this was hoping the office gave us the right box number, then taking a dull 1/2 inch drill bit and running that through the whole lock.
This didn’t work very well and we could spend up to a half an hour, plus risk damaging the box.
I figured there had to be a better way to go about it and started learning on the good ole youtube.
the 1st thing I tried was a homebrew snap gun made from a clothes hanger, I haven’t got that to work yet, but along the way I came across a bunch of SPP videos and transitioned to paper clip rakes. I had a little success with those but, quickly upgraded to some picks made from some old hack saw blades I had laying around. Those baby’s were a big improvement. I got through all the locks in my house, and amazed my coworkers at the mail box, when I popped the lock in under a minute, without damaging the mailbox. Now I do all the mail box rekeys. For Christmas I upgraded to a blemished SouthOrd MPXS-14.
I'm lucky enough to work in vacant unit turns so I find a lot of locks. I keep any of the tenant installed locks I find(mostly knobs), and have managed to find a few padlocks in the crap they leave behind. Also for whatever reason my company doesn’t bother to order new keys for the IC cores so if we don’t have keys in the office, the standard procedure is to toss the cores I keep them. So far the IC core kick my but, which drives me crazy because they are master and control keyed, plus I've opened a few and there are no security pins. I have been able to rake them with limited success but no go on SPP yet.
Anyway I guess that’s about it, I posted up a couple pics of my lock collection, nothing fancy yet( have a American 5200 on the way), and tools of the trade so far.
Love the the site, and all the great info.
I'm firstbiggestmost and I'm a lock-pick-aholic.
I've been picking locks for a bit over 2 months now, and have really been enjoying myself. I got into picking as an attempt to bring some style to my job working in maintenance ( been there for about a year now). Our doors are mostly master keyed IC cores but, we also have a lot of community mail boxes that the tenants constantly lose the keys to. The standard procedure for dealing with this was hoping the office gave us the right box number, then taking a dull 1/2 inch drill bit and running that through the whole lock.
This didn’t work very well and we could spend up to a half an hour, plus risk damaging the box. I figured there had to be a better way to go about it and started learning on the good ole youtube.
the 1st thing I tried was a homebrew snap gun made from a clothes hanger, I haven’t got that to work yet, but along the way I came across a bunch of SPP videos and transitioned to paper clip rakes. I had a little success with those but, quickly upgraded to some picks made from some old hack saw blades I had laying around. Those baby’s were a big improvement. I got through all the locks in my house, and amazed my coworkers at the mail box, when I popped the lock in under a minute, without damaging the mailbox. Now I do all the mail box rekeys. For Christmas I upgraded to a blemished SouthOrd MPXS-14.I'm lucky enough to work in vacant unit turns so I find a lot of locks. I keep any of the tenant installed locks I find(mostly knobs), and have managed to find a few padlocks in the crap they leave behind. Also for whatever reason my company doesn’t bother to order new keys for the IC cores so if we don’t have keys in the office, the standard procedure is to toss the cores I keep them. So far the IC core kick my but, which drives me crazy because they are master and control keyed, plus I've opened a few and there are no security pins. I have been able to rake them with limited success but no go on SPP yet.
Anyway I guess that’s about it, I posted up a couple pics of my lock collection, nothing fancy yet( have a American 5200 on the way), and tools of the trade so far.
Love the the site, and all the great info.
I'm firstbiggestmost and I'm a lock-pick-aholic.
). I actually made those with my angle grinder. The Bogata I made on Saturday using awol70's guide. I made that one with some hand files so it was a lot easier than the grinder. I'm real happy with the way the Bogata turned out, the handle has a sloppy cure, but its comfortable in my hand and it opens locks pretty sweet too. It was a fun pick to make. I'll probable make a triple peak version next.