Sun Mar 22, 2015 8:45 pm by MBI
Medeco have always been some of my favorite locks to pick. They're a fun challenge and I get sort of a juvenile satisfaction from picking a lock that so many locksmiths insist is unpickable.
I think you're off to a good start with Biaxial as your choice. I find them easier than the original model Medecos, by far. With the fore and aft cuts on the pin tips, it leaves either the front or back of the chisel tip of the pin with a very large surface against which to rest the tip of your hook. You just have to feel each pin tip to figure out if the larger chisel face is towards the rear of the lock or the front of the lock. Then with that very wide keyway, you tilt the pick slightly left or right, and brace it against that larger face of the pin tip as you lift the pin. That's how I rotate the pins. On original Medecos, the chisel tip is centered between the front and the back of the pin and the pins are a bit more stubborn to rotate exactly when and how you want them to. Or at least for me.
I determine what the pin rotations are by trial and error. I start picking, find the binding pin, then just randomly choose left or right to rotate it as you lift it. Once the pin is set, wiggle it. If the rotation can wiggle a tiny bit, you're set correctly in the sidebar groove. If the rotation has no wiggle, it's set against the side of the pin or in the false groove. For this step I find its sometimes helpful to file a tiny groove in the tip of the pick hook. I press that groove in the pick up against the V shaped chisel tip at the bottom of the pin, lift slightly and push and pull to see if the rotation can wiggle.
If the rotation is set correctly, I move on to find the next binding pin. If it's not set correctly, I let the pins drop and try again, rotating a different direction on that pin next time. As I go along, I decode it in my head and keep a mental list of each pin, if it's a fore or aft pin (telling me where to place the pick tip) and which is the correct rotation of each pin as I progress.
It's helpful if you remove the grub screws from the top of the bible and dump out the pin stacks. Then replace one or two pin stacks and start this process. This will let you get a more controlled feel for how the pin tips feel with the pick and whether or not you're correctly rotating the pins. You can add pin stacks as you go along and your skill level increases. I found my progress flew along until I hit four pin stacks. Four and five pin stacks started to get noticeably harder, but still very achievable. It was moving from five to six pin stacks that for me the difficulty level seemed to at least double, if not worse.
Have fun.
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