Learn to pick locks

I can already open padlocks with the pick I made out of a hacksaw blade, but there are many different types of locks, the weird tubular keyed ones for gun cabinets and home safes are a good example. I also have to learn a method for each type of combination lock. (Bicycle combo locks only take a few minutes. You just set all the numbers to 0, then, while pulling on the lock, twist the first one all the way up to 9, when you get back to 0 you roll the next one up to 1. Roll the first all the way up to nine again, then push the second to 2… Continue this until it opens. I’ve done it to a few separate locks, one with five digits, the other with six. Neither took more than ten minutes.)

I won’t be satisfied that I have ‘done’ this until I can open all types of common locks reliably.

This would be a deadly skill to have!

Definatly want to learn how to do it.

Youtube doesn’t help very much .

The first time I wanted to learn how to pick a lock was in 7th grade. My class would have to stand outside the door to Health class until the teacher came back from…i dont remember. Lunch, another class, something. Anyway, none of us ever did our homework and I tried to pick the lock with a bobby pin. I wish I would have succeeded. I would have been supercool.

pretty useful for if i ferget my keys or locker combo

But I see myself eyeing random locks every now and then wondering if I could pop them open.

I had a customer once who had to borrow our hammer to smash his car’s window so he could get in, because he had locked his keys inside it. I don’t want to be that guy.

They’re called bolt cutters. :D I had to use them once for my art locker when I lost the key to my lock. (Well, I didn’t lose the key – I had locked it inside the locker by mistake. How ironic is that!)

www.lysator.liu.se/mit-guide/MITLockGuide.pdf

Having some trouble with ‘real’ locks (door locks instead of padlocks). Have to be careful because I’ve heard they break off real easily inside the locks, then you’ve got a real problem.

Mostly having problems with pins that don’t set. I’m guessing its because of the order that I’m setting them, but I still don’t know the rules for that except for set the hardest one first and adjust the torque for everything else. Probably wrong. The guide should help me actually figure it out. Then I’ll be able to get into people’s dorms when they leave their alarms set to loud and early when they are on vacation.

when my mother used to lock me out of everything. I wanted in, so I learned to pick. I must have seen something on TV, or something (I do not recall), because I got good at it pretty quick. I used hair pins, and after my first two attempts, I was successful every time.

I hadn’t a need to do it for a long time after my teens, but just a few years ago, my BF, his brother and I went skiing. We drove to the place very late at night, in a blizzard, and it was FREEZING and 3 am when we got to the hotel. One of us (ahem) had accidentally shut the truck hatch and we weren’t supposed to close it all the way because we didn’t have the key. So there we were, freezing, and exhausted after driving 12 hours (and having been stuck on the rode for 7 of those hours), and we couldn’t get our stuff out of the truck.

So I said, if I can somehow get a bobby pin, I can pick the lock. they didn’t believe me, but they were desperate. No one at the hotel-staff or guests in the lobby-had a bobby pin, so I waited while they drove around and found a 24 hour grocery store. they came back with 2 different sizes of bobby pins, and with no faith in their faces, and disbelief in their eyes, they waited while I picked at the lock.

It was like riding a bike—everything came back to me, and bam! within 10 minutes, I had the truck hatch opened and we had our stuff. They were VERY pleasantly surprised, and I was their hero! Funny, too, because both consider themselves men of the world, think they can do pretty much anything, and both are very handy; but I was the woman with the skillz…hahaha!

Since then I’ve been called on to pick three more locks for others in emergency situations, and while some took much longer than others, I was able to open them every time!

Note: I only use my lock-picking ability out of necessity. ;-) It’s worth it for those weird emergencies, for sure.