Getting started with levers and wires
Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2017 9:26 pm
Ratlock generously sent me a mortice lever lock this week to help me get started into picking levers, so I bent up some wires and started at it... Bending wires without the right tools isn't the easiest thing in the world, but I managed to come up with a couple that worked, and got it picked... however I sorta had to cheat a bit, and was hoping for some tips on how to deal with this sort of situation I've got here. The problem being the amount of tension on the levers from the springs... If I "cheat" and set the wires against a pin that's further back (so there's less tension):
...I can pick this lock pretty easily. The levers set one-at-a-time and stay in the gate once they're put there.
However if I set the springs into their normal position:
...there is much more tension on the levers, and the levers won't stay set. The binding lever won't stay in the gate, it slips down a small amount so the fence(?) is against the side of the lever above the gate and it holds there, and the other levers won't bind. I haven't figured out a way to progress...
How would you deal with a situation like this? Heavy tension didn't fix it... the only thing I can think of is to make a wider pick wire that can lift multiple levers at once, but that would only lift two that are right next to each other so might not help.
Here's a pic of the wires I made, based on what I've seen on other posts...
would love to hear critiques and tips. My tension wire is .092", and the pick wires are .063". The bent one is for getting around the side warding. If I use the straighter one, I can get the bottom two levers easy but is hard to reach the top one around the warding. If I use the bent one I can get the top two levers easy but can't quite reach the bottom one because of the bend... I may make another one that's somewhere between the two, but I'd like to hear your thoughts first...
Thanks!
...I can pick this lock pretty easily. The levers set one-at-a-time and stay in the gate once they're put there.
However if I set the springs into their normal position:
...there is much more tension on the levers, and the levers won't stay set. The binding lever won't stay in the gate, it slips down a small amount so the fence(?) is against the side of the lever above the gate and it holds there, and the other levers won't bind. I haven't figured out a way to progress...
How would you deal with a situation like this? Heavy tension didn't fix it... the only thing I can think of is to make a wider pick wire that can lift multiple levers at once, but that would only lift two that are right next to each other so might not help.
Here's a pic of the wires I made, based on what I've seen on other posts...
would love to hear critiques and tips. My tension wire is .092", and the pick wires are .063". The bent one is for getting around the side warding. If I use the straighter one, I can get the bottom two levers easy but is hard to reach the top one around the warding. If I use the bent one I can get the top two levers easy but can't quite reach the bottom one because of the bend... I may make another one that's somewhere between the two, but I'd like to hear your thoughts first...
Thanks!