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Analytic Thinking
Each lock has its own special
characteristics which make picking harder or easier. If you learn to
recognize and exploit the "
personality traits" of
locks, picking will go much
faster. Basically, you want to
analyze the feedback you get from a lock to
diagnose its
personality traits and then use your experience to decide on an
approach to open the lock. Chapter 9 discusses a large number of
common traits and ways to
exploit or
overcome them.
People
underestimate the
analytic skills involved in lock picking. They think that the
picking tool opens the lock. To them the torque wrench is a passive tool that just puts the lock under the desired stress. Let me propose another way to view the situation. The pick is just
running over the
pins to get
information about the lock. Based on an
analysis that information the
torque is adjusted to make the pins set at the sheer line. It's the
torque wrench that opens the lock.
Varying the
torque as the
pick moves in and out of the keyway is a general trick that can be used to get around several picking problems. For example, if the middle pins are set, but the end pins are not, you can increase the torque as the pick moves over the middle pins. This will reduce the chances of
disturbing the
correctly set pins. If some
pin doesn't seem to lift up far
enough as the pick passes over it, then try reducing the
torque on the next
pass.
The skill of
adjusting the
torque while the pick is moving requires careful
coordination between your
hands, but as you become better at
visualizing the process of
picking a lock, you will become better at this
important skill.