- So these locks have all been
set up special for picking, and this is the Weiser board. I have a similar board for Kwikset and a similar board for Schlage. This is how you learn how to pick a lock. There's only one pin in here. Now before you do anything fancy, take your rake or the snake pick. Now, the pin is only into
the front of the lock. The key only goes in that far. Don't stick the pick
in up to your knuckles. It doesn't do anything,
it just jams up the back. Also, don't twist the pick. This is up and down motions. So we're gonna take the rake. Don't use the tension
wrench, don't do anything. All I want you to do is just go in there and feel the spring. If you look in there, you can
actually see the bottom pin. And what you're doing, just
feel what it feels like. Feel that tension. Go a little bit past it,
there won't be anything there. But there's the first pin. Just want you to feel, just
lift it up a little bit. I'm gonna show you the
three methods of picking, which are raking, the
French or the feel method, which we call SPP, single pin picking, and my favorite, which is rake and pick. Rake and feel. So here we have two pins. (pins clicking) Here we have three. We're not trying to turn nothing. All I want you to do
is get the feel for it. Just put your pick in
there, feel the pins. Count the pins. And a slightly advanced method is to, sometimes you'll take your
pick, put it in all the way, that far, not up to your knuckles, and slowly pull the pick out. And just count how many pins fall down. That's easy, that's just
one, pick it all up. One, two. You can feel them, you can hear them. Sometimes it's better to use
just the diamond on that. Or sometimes even just put it upside down, pick up all your pins. One, two, three. This one's got three. Nothing, nothing. This one has... (pins clicking) So for starters, we're
gonna take the rake. Feel it. You feel the first pin. You feel this one, it's got one, two. Feel the one, two. Again, not up to your
knuckles and gentle, gentle. Locksmiths are sometimes
told you have nice hands. We're supposed to be gentle. Not rough, not twisting, gentle. The gentle lock pickers do better. Sometimes you gotta be
a little bit tougher, but nine times out of 10,
or 99 times out of 100, gentle is what you want. So you can just feel. No twisting, just feel those pins. So once you feel confident,
now we're gonna go to picking, to adding tension. The tension is what you
put on to turn the lock when you pick it. Because this is already
locked, it's only got one pin. Now for beginners, there's
two places to put your, this is the flexible tension
wrench and the rigid. I prefer the rigid, and I'll show you why and everything later. You just put it at the
bottom, light tension. Don't crank it, light tension. And if you put in light tension, and you just gotta raise that little pin, and it picks. Now I've been doing this
forever, so it looks easier. I'll just go to this real quick, all we wanna do is just pick it and just relock it again. And while you're doing this ten times, I know it's simple, it's only one pin, but you gotta get a feel. Now some people have a hard
time getting that first one, but again, doing this about ten times. Just put your pick in. This is more single pin picking. It's not really a rake method because there's only one pin in there. Basically, you just put
the pick in and it turns. Just a side note, if you pick
a lock and you wanna open it, use a screwdriver, put
the flathead in there. Use your screwdriver to
lock it and unlock it. So, we're locked again. Let's just lock it from the inside. Let's just pick it open. Again it's only one pin,
so a simple rake is just put in in there, boom, it picks. Don't crank it with your tension wrench. Use your screwdriver. We're tool users. Boom, okay? So do that about ten times,
get a nice feel for it. So I said I'd show you two methods. So this is just a nice... And there's no 100% perfect way. Whatever works for you. My dad was extremely
light and gentle picker. Never broke a pick in his life. My uncle was a little rough on picks. He picked every lock. My dad and my uncle, my dad
used a hook, was his favorite. And I'll show you my favorite. One of my other videos you can see some of my favorite picks, and
then later on in the series as we move along, we'll
show you the various picks for various locks. But these are all you need as a beginner to pick 90% of the most
popular locks in North America. The diamond, the rake, and the hook. That's all you need for beginners. And get the springy tension
wrench and get the rigid. The other method is, which I really like. I like putting my tension wrench
at the top of the keyhole, or the profile, whatever
you wanna call it. So I like put my pick up top. Again, don't crank it, light tension. I like to put my tension at the top. Put it in there. We're only just raising it, boom. Now, then progress. And pick that ten times
then go to this one, put your pick in from
the top or the bottom. It picks. Get used to doing both ways. But what I want you to do is just, and don't be afraid to let go. Eh, tried it twice, it didn't open. Just put your pick in. Again, I can hear one, two. I just picked it, there we go. Make sure it's locked,
apply light tension, put your pick in. Sometimes I'll vary my
tension a little bit. Boom, it's only got two pins. I'm really just kind of raking. I really prefer to go from
the top, put my pick in. Gentle, gentle. And do each one 10 times. We're really not concerned
too much on your technique. Just be gentle, just pick
it, just get a feel for it. If you're gonna lubricate
these, there's a controversy. WD-40 is what I use for picking. I use Tri-Flow or Houdini
or whatever, Easy Lock, for lubricating the lock. WD-40 is a penetrating oil. Tri-Flow, et cetera, is a lubricant. So you wanna do these
about once a week, if that. You're gonna be picking these lots. Pick each lock 10 times. When you get to these, you're
gonna be a little bit harder. What I want you to do
is put on light tension and just pick the pin. And see it's just very
easy, light tension. You don't have to be
brutal on these things. But now what I want you to
do is put a lot of tension. Gee whiz, you can hear it click over, but too much tension
binds the pin too much. I have to really push on that. And that's how you bend
picks and break picks. I got too much tension. It won't even move if
I put a ton of tension. So I just want light tension. But I want you to vary your
tension until you find what works for you nicely. This is light tension, light. Go heavy, nah. I'm binding the pin too much. I have to back off. But that's important as we go
into the single pin picking, SPP, which is the most effective
method for picking most, if not every, lock going. So again, I tend to rake,
and then I single pin pick. So I do the rake and feel method. Some people just do rake,
and they're successful. Some people just do SPP, which
is the most successful way. And I tend to rake and SPP. But what I want you to
do is feel that tension, find a nice tension. What you're gonna see is why
we can do single pin picking. What you're seeing on the diagram, no lock is manufactured perfectly. It's the tolerances inside that
make it easy to pick a lock. The high security locks
and the better made commercial-grade or quality
locks have tighter tolerances, which makes them tighter to pick. Almost any key will open some of those, so they're extremely easy to pick. When we apply tension to
the plug to pick the lock, it's the manufacturing or
the machining imperfections. When we apply tension, not all
of those five pins will bind. One of those pins will bind. And that's what does us
well for single pin picking. And that's what you're
going in with your pick. You're finding which
one's loose, loose, loose, and the one that is binding
is the one you pick. So it could be the first one,
it could be the last one. Every lock is slightly
different because of the manufacturing techniques. Apply light tension, find
the pin that's binding, pick that pin, and then
another pin will bind. You find that pin, pick that, and then you find the next one, and that's how you do. You got five pins, you find
which ones are binding, boom, boom, boom. You pick the binding pins,
and you pick the lock open. That's gonna take a lot of practice. It's gonna take you a while to get there. We're talking three months. You'll start getting
successes your first week, and as you're picking
the inexpensive locks, you'll be very successful very quickly. But you have to practice. Don't sit there for six hours. Spend about an hour a
day following this method on a pick board. And then, I know everybody's
gonna advance into you're gonna have your five-pin locks, and you will have successes picking them. But if you practice these methods, you're gonna have continual success and expand on your picking abilities. Because of the imperfections of the lock, we know one is binding. So as we get to the second one, again, we can rake it, it opens very quickly. But what I want you to
do is apply tension. Which one, this is why I like the hook. Again, beginners use the rake,
but this I like the hook. Which one's binding? Is that first pin binding,
or is the second pin binding? It's a little bit more
of a technique to learn, but which one's binding? So in this one, actually
the first one's binding, and the second one is not. So this one just happens to be one, two. First one's binding, second one isn't. It's a little bit hard to tell because there's only two pins in here, very easy. So this is interesting. One, two on this one. And apply your different tensions. Put more tension, now
they're both binding. So we back it off a little bit. We already know this one's one, two. One. Oops, I overpicked it. And don't be afraid,
ah, I'm getting nowhere. Start fresh. So we pick the one, pick the two. This one's one, two. It could be one, two, three, four. It could be two, one. This one has three, very easy
to rake this and pick it. I just rake it, boom. Plus, it's easy, this is meant to be. These are easy on purpose
so you can be successful. Advanced technique, figure out
which one is binding first. This one was interesting,
this was two, one, three. So I could feel two binds. And then one, and then three. Some people just pull it right out. That's one raking method. I tend to just kinda like
to bounce along the bottom and just feel them. Practice on this, adjust your tension. You can put the tension
wrench at the bottom. Try it at the top. And all we care about right now, we don't care which way you pick it. Practice a little bit. Lock it, and let's practice. Unlock it, let's practice picking it, picking it into the locked position. You just gotta start it. Now, you say, why would I pick it locked? Well, if you just were a law enforcement, you went in there with a warrant, you planted bugs, you wanna pick it open, and then you wanna pick
it locked as you go. Interesting enough, we
have to pick a lot of locks in the summertime. We're picking locks open, with
a warrant through the SPCA, gets a warrant 'cause somebody's
left their dog or their cat in the house, gone on
vacation or in an accident. Or recently we had a cat. These people went away for a month, and there's a cat inside
looking out the front window, and it was the neighbor's
cat had gone in their house. So they got the SPCA, went before a judge, they got a warrant just
to go in there and open up the door to rescue the cat. And the cat was very happy
when we opened the door. The owner got the cat, and
then we had to pick it locked. Sometimes you gotta pick locks locked. So you gotta pick it unlocked,
gotta pick it locked. The other interesting
thing is we'll go into that with our plug spinners. Sometimes you got a hard
lock like a Schlage, and it's a six-pin,
you've picked it one way, and you picked it the wrong
way for whatever reason. Now rather than lock it and pick it, we'll use a plug spinner. And there's a whole
video upcoming on how to use your plug spinners. So I hope you've enjoyed the first step. Just spend an hour on this a day. On the simple one, you'll get
this one done pretty good, and then we'll go into
more advanced methods of picking other locks. This is a good practice
board to get you successful and get you a feel for it. And stay tuned for more
videos on our other practice pick boards and
picking the top 10 locks that you're gonna run across. I hope you enjoyed watching this video. Subscribe to my channel. Also, visit my website,
and you can see what online locksmith training I have
for beginners, intermediate, and advanced, as well as
my covert methods of entry and my non-destructive methods of entry.
