The pins have springs in them, so you'll get it once you try.
It takes alot of patience, so take your time.
Just like this, although I think cabinets turn to the left.
Posted on 03/10/2009 7:43:28 PM PDT by franksolich
Today while in a small town (circa 1,500) in the Sandhills of Nebraska, when I turned off the automobile, the blade of the key snapped off, leaving me with just the top half in my hand.
Okay, so I went around looking for a locksmith (as I am deaf, telephoning around does not work; when seeking information, I have to shoe-leather it).....and much to my surprise, this particular town had no locksmith.
The alternative was 17 miles away.
This really suprised me, because in some towns a tenth the size of this town, at least in Nebraska, there's always at least one locksmith, at least a part-time one.
Okay.
So I got to thinking. I lack all practical skills, due to the emphasis, in my education, on the liberal arts, although later I did add economics and accounting.
I make my living doing income tax work, and while it pays the bills for the year, it means I'm pretty idle more than half the year.
In other words, I have time.
I'm thinking about checking into locksmithery; surely it is something practical. I'm going to check with old-timers in the area, to see if any of them had once been locksmiths, and get their observations.
Just how hard is it to become a locksmith? I'm sure it's not easy, even though I'm talking here about the basic essential fundamental locksmithery; automobile ignitions, house door-knobs, that sort of thing.
It's not like I would have to make a living doing it; just something to dabble in for spending money.
I'd appreciate any observations here. Thank you!
When it comes to vehicles, nowdays every lock is encoded with a number. That number is on a computer somewhere. You can call the dealer that you bought the car from and get that number and then with that number, any locksmith anywhere can make a key for you.
If you want to get into the automobile key business, you might need to get contracts with dealerships. They probably provide spare keys to most of the car owners nowdays.
Also, “onstar” is going to cut into your car key business very drastically.
You can learn locksmithing through ICS courses.
How do I pick the lock on an ordinary, probably 1960s, metal file cabinet? I have one that I snagged from next to a dumpster — 4 drawers, in really nice condition. But can’t get into it, and don’t really want to get into prying and hacksaws, etc, that would do serious cosmetic damage. I’m sure the lock is no big deal, but don’t have a clue how to go about picking it, or trying to obtain a key for it. It’s not worth paying a locksmith to come out and do it, since their basic charge, at least in my area, is more than the cabinet is worth.
No kidding. I sometimes remove the tumblers from my ignition keys so I don’t have to deal with it.
No advise but if you had a screwdriver with you, you probably could have gotten the ignition to turn. We drove a car for years this way because of a broken key in the ignition. Fortunately it was an older model that had a different key to unlock it!
The two things I’d try would be super glue, and a fairly strong magnet. Probably in the opposite order, in case the super glue failed to do the trick but leaked a little to the wrong place and secured the key blade to the inside of the ignition.
sounds like a great idea for a little extra income.
There is some inventory required and some investment.
But the demand is good for heavy equipment. All the time contractors are losing or breaking keys.
Being the only locksmith in a given area has advantages.
If people can’t pay, barter your services.
Thanks, I’ll try that! Do I want the pins to be up or down (I have no clue what the inside of lock looks like)? And do I have the bobby pin still in, holding the pins in the right positions, when I use the opened paper clip to turn the lock? I’m having a little trouble picturing the details here . . .
LOL.
My dad used to joke ... Outside of the cop, the locksmith is the most paranoid person in a town.
Just like this, although I think cabinets turn to the left.
Okay, thanks! It helps a lot to have that diagram.
I suspect it may be the type of lock shown at the link below, under section 9.13 — a “disk tumbler” lock. Would that require a different strategy? I don’t really understand this diagram.
Filing cabinets are easy. No need to pick the lock. Just get all the spare small keys you have lying around, and try them all. I would almost guarantee if you’ve got five small keys you can try, one of them will work.
Picking a tumbler type lock is very difficult. Way more difficult than they make it look on TV.
What you need is a very hard piece of very small diameter wire. Bend the tip of it up @ 90degrees at about a 1/16th of an inch from the end. finding a piece of wire that his hard enough and strong enough is not easy to do. Then when you do, bending it will often make it break. You need to make a few more spares and vary the amount “bent up”. shorter tips are easier to use, but sometimes you need to push up tumblers more than that.
Once you have a good “pic”, then you need a blade. A steel fingernail file makes a good blade. A small pocket knife or tiny screwdriver will work too. It works best if you can attach a sturdy handle of some kind to both your pic and your blade.
The process goes soemthing like this...
Barrels are not drilled perfectly. Some tumblers engage before others do. Throough trial and error, you need to find out which tumblers engage first. Use the pic to push the tumbers up and use the blade to apply rotational force to the barrel. When you find a tumbler that sticks up when you apply rotational force to the barrel, you move on to another tumbler. If you are pushing tumblers up in the wrong sequence, they will fall when you try to move to the next tumbler.
Before you start trying to push up tumblers, first apply rotational force to the barrel. Check the tumblers to see which ones are tight and which ones are loose. The tight one is the first one that needs to be “picked”. Once you figure out how high to push the first tumber, you need to move on to the next tumber that gets tight, and “pick” that one, without dropping the first tumbler.
Continue this process until you have all tumblers pushed up to the correct distance. When you do, the barrel will be free to rotate and the lock will open.
PS...any idiot that claims you can pick a lock with a bobby pin is a putz that watched too many movies.
One more thing...sometimes you can get lucky by whacking the lock with a heavy hammer from the top side while trying to turn the barrel with a blade. It rarely works, but I’ve seen it done.
Depends on your state. Almost all require a license and the difficulty in getting the license varies. So you would probably need to start with your state’s website and then look for online classes or local training classes.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_training_is_needed_to_become_a_Locksmith
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