Group:Lockpicking

Group:Lockpicking
Members	timm, Jonty, Mark
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Project maintained by timm, contact on IRC

Summary

Encouraging the wonderful sport of Lockpicking in the UK and in the ROI.

There appears to be much interest in the wonderful Sport of Lockpicking. During the space warming party on 1 August 2010, a mini-workshop was held. The interest was simply amazing and many tried their best opening the few locks which were available.

A typical London Lockpicking Sport Session!

Events -- Sport Sessions

The next lockpicking sport session will be on Saturday 10 April 2011, from 3 p.m. onwards. Please feel free to come any time after 3 p.m. If you've never done lockpicking before, we'll do our very best to get you opening locks.

There will be a SportShop for those who would like their very own sportset.

The lockpicking sport session is on the second Saturday afternoon of the month, from 3 p.m.

All are welcome regardless of experience or shoe size. Communal picks/tension tools are provided if you don't have your own.

Equipment (Locks and Picks)

All lockpicking equipment is currently stored in a plastic box in the back storage room. Feel free to leave your picks and locks here or in your box if you don't want to carry them with you.

• Locks! We need many, many more locks.

Currently, we only have some locks (due to a very generous donation from the German Lockpicking SportClub). If anyone can come across any locks (like locks without the key -- useless for most but very useful for us :), please donate them to the Hackspace.

Regarding the quantity of locks, we should have at least a few hundred. This will assure that we have locks for all levels of lockpicking, from beginner's locks to locks for the more experienced.

New ideas for the London Lockpicking Sportgroup

If you have any ideas for the lockpicking sportgroup, please pass them on.

Suggestion:

• "Make your own pick set day". The grind wheel can be used to make each interested member their own pick set/ more sets for the hackspace. Very fun thing to do in my experience! -- Kal
  • "Make your own pick set day" would be a lovely idea. The metal strips on windscreen wipers make great tensioners. For picks, you need to find a metal which is strong but flexible (thin mealsaw blades do well). Opening locks with your own picks is really nice :) -- t.
    • I came across this video tutorial for making picks from old butter knives LINK -- Johannes

Pick sets

More info about pick sets.

Recommended Reading

Inside a lock

The lock can open

How not to pick a lock

Before you start lockpicking, reading some theory would be a good idea.

Some nice screenshots of Inside a Lock with explanations.

The MIT Guide to Lockpicking is very well written and will provide you with a very good introduction to lockpicking

MIT Guide to Lockpicking in English

MIT Guide to Lockpicking in German

MIT Guide to Lockpicking in French

Locksport International also has a very good guide:

Locksport Guide to Lockpicking

External Links

They are now around six/seven Lockpicking Sport Clubs in the world. Due to much interest in this sport, much growth is expected in the coming years. Let us profit from their experience!

Clubs:

• http://www.ssdev.org/SSDeV/start.php The world's first Lockpicking Sportclub!
• http://www.toool.nl Lockpicking Sportclub in the Netherlands
• http://www.lockpicking.ch/ SPASS, Lockpicking Sportclub in Switzerland
• http://www.openlocks.at/ OpenLocks, Lockpicking Sportclub in Austria
• http://locksport.com/ Locksport International
• http://toool.us The USA Lockpicking Sportclub site
• http://www.tog.ie Lockpicking at the Dublin Hackspace (yes, they're doing it too!)

Enough said ... Let's get our site in there soon!

Library:

• Cool stuff happening in DC
• http://lockwiki.com/ very good wiki
• http://www.sorgonet.com/security/hdlockpicking/
• Good discussion on the legality
• Glossary of technical terms
• Lever locks
• UK lock types
• Safes