In order to be able to open a lock it is
important to have the right tools for the job.
This section will teach you what tools are required for the particular lock you
are attempting to open.
The majority of warded locks come in the form
of padlocks. The tools needed for such a lock can either be made or purchased
at low cost. These being skeleton keys. This type of lock is the only type
which skeleton keys are available for. At this point it should be noted what a
skeleton key actually is in order to dispel any myths about them.
A skeleton key is simply a key which only consists of enough metal to open the
lock. With the warded lock, with reference to the mechanisms section, it can be
seen that part of the lock does not move, i.e. the actual ward. This is where a
key which only has enough metal to operate the locking part, comes in. The
diagram below illustrates the function and operation of the skeleton key.

As can be seen, part of the key has been filed
away preventing the key from being stopped by the ward, thus allowing the
remaining end section to come into contact with the locking mechanism and open
the lock.
These skeleton keys can be bought quite
cheaply, however, they can also be made with little difficulty. A skeleton key
for a particular make of a warded lock which opens other locks in the same
series can be made quite easily by removing part of the key which would be
obstructed by the ward. The diagram below shows how a key to a lock can be made
to open other locks of the same series and possibly warded locks of other
manufacturers.

The following illustration depicts other skeleton keys which can be manufactured.

Pin Tumbler & Wafer
The tools required to open these two types of
locks are similar and will therefore be looked at together.
Unfortunately, contrary to popular belief,
there are no skeleton keys which open this type of lock as is depeicted in
films, but is more down to skill and practise.
Hook Picks
These are for the use of 'pure picking' as will
be explained in the techniques section.
All that is needed here is to understand what
they are and to appreciate that they come in a variety of sizes.

Rakes
Rakes come in a variety of shapes and sizes.
The diagram below shows some fo the major ones.

Turning Tools/Tension Wrench
A vital requirement in the picking of these
types of locks.

Bypass Pick
This tool can be easily made by grinding a
hacksaw blade to a tapered point similar to that shown below.

Lever
Lifter Pick
The size of this will be determined by the
lever lock to be picked.

Turning Tool/Tension Wrench
This tool, although has the same name as that
used for pin and wafer locks, is very different in construction. Both by way of
shape and strength of metal used. The reason for this will be discussed in the
techniques section.

Combination Brief Case
Combination Probe
This type of probe doesn't require the strength
of the similar bypass pick used for pin tumbler locks but instead must be
extremely thin.
This probe is for the sole purpose of opening
brief case combination locks.

The probe which I constructed for this use was
made from a feeler guage. In particular a number 12
Constructing Picks
Although picks are relatively cheap to purchase
it can often be quite difficult obtaining them and finding outlets which will
sell them to you.
This need not be a serious problem as adequate
picks can be constructed by oneself with a little hardwork and patience.
In order to make a pick it is a vital requirement
that you have a grinder, as files will not shape the metal required to make a
strong and long lasting pick.
This brings us to an important issue, i.e.,
what metal should be used and where can it be obtained? Well for a pick to be
of any use it must fulfil two main criteria. It must be strong and it must also
be thin, (to get past any fancy key hole which stands between you and the
mechanism).
Such metal can easily be found in the form of
hacksaw blades. These can be marked into the shape of picks by use of a
permanent pen and can then be ground carefully to the shape required. This
metal is extremely useful and can be used to construct the hook picks, rakes,
bypass pick and lever lock lifter pick.
Feeler guage sets, as available from hardware
or automobile shops, also provide metal which can be used. Although some of
these are only useful for shims they can be used for picks or probes,
(especially combination probe), depending on their strength and thickness.
The metal used for turning tools both for
pintumbler/wafer and lever will vary. For a turning tool used to open a pin
tumbler or wafer lock any springy metal which can be bent to the shape
illustrated above, i.e, the straight forward simple turning tool type A,
without the tool losing its shape will be sufficient.
The lever lock turning tool must be constructed
from a much more rigid and stronger metal. It should be such that once in the
required shape will not bend as it must be able to exert a strong turning
force.
In order to be able to pick a lock it is
helpful to understand how the lock works. The main types of lock which will be
discussed here are Warded, Pin tumber, Wafer/Disc Tumbler, Lever and
Combination.
Before discussing how the different types of
locks work I will first explain the basic parts of a lock and provide some
other information which should help readers to understand the explanations
given.


The simplest of all locks to pick and to
understand is the warded lock, which is where I shall start.
Warded Locks
The warded lock is of a relatively simple
design.
The diagram below shows a simple warded lock
with a correct key in place. It can be seen from the diagram that the key has a
number of cuts in it to allow the key to pass the protruding pieces of metal.
These pieces of metal are the actual wards of the lock and will vary in length
and position.

This type of lock has one or more 'wards' which
prevent the incorrect key from throwing the bolt. Wards protrude inside the
lock preventing a wrong key from turning and therefore from operating the bolt.
The warded lock can be found in many forms. The
diagram below shows how a warded padlock works. These are usually the cheaper
priced padlocks.

Only the correct key will open the lock due to
the wards which restrict an incorrect key from turning within the lock.
When considering how this type of lock works it
is important to remember that the wards do not move in any way and are simply
protrusions along the keyway to prevent any key apart from the correct key from
turning inside the lock and thus moving the bolt.
Pin Tumbler Locks
The inside of a pin tumbler lock can
be seen from the diagram below.

The pin tumbler lock consists of pairs of
bottom pins, which are usually made of brass, and top drivers constructed from
steel. In the majority of locks there will be five sets of these pins and
drivers.
When the correct key is inserted into the lock
the point at which the top drivers and bottom pins separate will be brought to
the same position. This position is called the shear point or shearing line.
When this point is reached the cylinder will be allowed to turn and the lock
will open.
The lock below has had a wrong key inserted. It
can seen that the key has failed to raise some of the pins to their correct
height and has also raised some pins too high. Therefore, the cylinder is
unable to turn.

Many high security locks use mushroom or spool pins in order to make picking this type of lock much harder. This can be shown from the diagram below.

Pins of the shapes shown above increase the
difficulty of picking pin tumbler locks as they give the impression, when
picking the lock, that the pin has been picked. In actual fact the pin is still
preventing the cylinder from turning but the recess of the high security pins
allows the cylinder to turn slightly, giving the impression that that
particular pin has been raised to the correct height.
Wafer Locks
The wafer lock is found on desks, filing
cabinets, some coin operated machines and on doors of cars. Although similar in
appearance to pin tumbler locks their internal mechanism is very much
different.
The diagram below shows the inside of a typical
wafer lock.

The wafers or disc tumblers are simply metal
discs with a rectangular hole in the centre. Within a wafer lock there are
usually around five of these discs depending on the security of the lock. When
the key is inserted into a wafer lock it will pass through this rectangular
hole.
Located on the side of each disc is a spring.
The wafers will lock as the spring will force this disc down through the bottom
of the cylinder and into the outer casing of the lock. Therefore, the key's
function is to raise each disc out of the casing so that the wafer is instead
in the centre of the cylinder. If the key was to raise a wafer too high the
cylinder would also be unable to rotate as the disc would protrude through the
top of the cylinder instead.
Wafer locks may be one of two types, either
single or double sided. Double sided provides far more security than a single
sided lock and can be found on automobiles.
The discs of a double sided lock will protrude
through both the top and bottom of the cylinder. This is because the discs will
be arranged with the first wafer with the spring forcing it downwards. The
second wafer's spring will force it upwards. The third will be forced
downwards. This alternating arrangement continues depending on the number of
wafers in the lock.
The double sided lock can be distinguished from
the more common single sided lock as the key will have notches on both sides of
the blade.
Lever Lock
This type of lock consists of usually four or
five levers. A typical lever can be seen below.

Each lever is lifted to a different height by
the key which allows the notch in the lever to align with the post of the bolt.
The key continues to turn and therefore moves the locking bolt through the
notch where it finally comes to rest in the second gate, the key having rotated
360 degrees.
This type of lock comes in mainly two forms.
Each is operated with a different type of key. Many door locks used in the UK
for instance use a bit type key. Whereas lever locks found on lockers,
suitcases, and desks use a flat type key, however, the principle behind each type
is the same. These two types of keys can be seen at the top of this page.
Combination Locks
Combination locks appear in a number of forms
and are mainly found on padlocks and brief cases. The lock may be of a dial
design similar to the type of lock on a safe, or may consist of a number of
small disks each with numbers on them, and having to be placed in a certain
order for the lock to open. The combination lock may also be of the push button
variety as found on a number of padlocks.
Although the principle behind the three styles
is the same, i.e. lining up gates of various parts of the lock in order for the
bolt to move, the design of the types are different and will therefore be
discussed separately.
The Dial Combinaton
This type of combination lock consists of a
small dial on the face of the lock and will usually have some sort of a mark or
arrow on one side. This arrow is used to point to the various numbers located
around the edge of the dial. In order to open the lock the dial will need to be
turned several times clockwise and anti-clockwise alining the arrow with a
different number each time until the lock finally snaps open.
Inside this lock are a number of discs, usually
about 2 depending on the amount of numbers in the combination. On each disc
there is a small notch or gate cut from it. The purpose of this gate is that
when the dial has been rotated in the correct sequence, the bolt which will be
holding the shackle in place will be allowed to move into the gap provided by
these gates therefore freeing the shackle and allowing the padlock to open. The
diagram below shows inside a typical combination padlock of this type with the
front removed, where a disc and bolt can be seen in place.

On the surface of the disc to the back of the
lock will be a small protrusion which will catch a similar protrusion on the
underside of the second disk. The second disk will also have a small protrusion
on the face of it which will catch on a protrusion located on the back of the
dial. When the dial is rotated the protrusion on its underside will come into
contact with the protrusion on the first disk thus rotating it. This will
inturn rotate the second disk as the protrusion on the underside of the first
disk comes into contact with the one on the face of the second and thus moves
the two as one. When the dial is being turned in the correct sequence the disks
will be turned only the right amount in order to line the gates in each disk
with the bolt allowing it to move out of the shackle and opening the lock.
There are two main types of dial padlock which
can affect the way in which it will be picked, which will be discussed later.
The way in which they differ is how the bolt locking the shackle is
constructed. Many of the older padlocks of this type could be snapped shut once
open after the dial had been turned, even though the position of the gates were
no longer at the same point. This was due to the bolt having a spring loaded
part to it, as in the diagram above
This meant that once the lock had been open and
the dial rotated rearranging the position of the gates and therefore moving the
bolt back in line with the shackle, the shackle could be pushed downwards
moving this spring loaded part inwards which would then spring back outwards
into the notch in the shackle thus locking the padlock.
The new syle however, does not use this spring
loaded part to the bolt which is instead completely solid. Therefore, when the
padlock is open and the dial rotated the bolt will be forced out of the gates,
and the padlock will be unable to be pushed into the lock.
The Disk Combination
This type of combination is found on a number
of bicycle chains and brief cases and also on some types of padlocks, see
below.

The diagram shows this type of lock in its most
simplest form, a simple bicycle lock, however the principle behind this type of
this lock applies to all locks of this design given a few added differences in
their construction here and there.
The main differences in their construction lies
behind whether the combination of the lock can be changed. I will first discuss
the basic design of a lock with a standard factory set combination which are
much simpler in their constructin and will later explain the more complex type
which allows the owner of the lock to change the combination, as on brief cases
for example.
Both type of locks will consist of a number of
discs which will be numbered on their outer edge. However, with the lock which
cannot have its combination changed there will be a notch on the inside
directly behind one of the numbers of each disc. It is when these notches are
in line that part of the lock will be allowed to move, thus opening the lock.
On the bicycle chains above for example, one end of the chain consists of the
locking part and the other will be a plug with a number of small pegs on its
edge. The pegs will be just large enough to move through the notches of the
discs.
When the lock is locked the plug will be in
place which will position these pegs behind each disc and will be prevented
from moving due to the solid part of the discs. However, when the discs are in
their correct order the notches will be positioned where the pegs are and thus
allow the plug to be removed.
The same principle of the bicycle lock lies
behind locks which may instead have a shackle instead of a plug as is the case
with other types of bicyle locks and padlocks. The diagram below shows a
different type of bicycle chain, this time with a shackle, and also a padlock.

The difference between the simple bicycle lock
explained above and the locks with shackles is simply that it is a section of
the shackle which has the pegs on which allows the shackle to lock instead of a
plug.
Combination disc locks which can be changed are
constructed in a slightly different way, and this is that it is not the disc
itself which has the notch removed but is instead a separate part of the
mechanism.
The diagram below shows the internal workings
of a brief case lock with these separate parts labelled.

These separate parts of the lock are usually
smaller plastic discs which instead of having a notch removed on its interior
have a point removed on its exterior, (see above).
The case locks due to a small grid which is
part of the bolt and attached to the button which is pushed outwards to open
the lock. It is this grid which fits around the metal and also the plastic
discs and locks the case as the plastic discs will protrude through each
section of the grid.

When the correct combination has been entered
the metal numbered discs will inturn rotate the plastic discs to the point at
which a part has been removed. Therefore the plastic discs will no longer
protrude through this grid and will allow the grid and bolt to move opening the
case.
In order to change the combination of a brief
case lock a small switch is moved on the inside of the case. This has the
effect of moving a small rod and with it these plastic discs. Therefore, if the
numbered discs are now rotated they will not interfere with the plastic discs
which will remain in the same position allowing a new combination to be chosen.
When the switch on the inside of the case is again moved the rod will slide
back and the plastic discs will enter the numbered discs, this time with the
point allowing the grid to open where the numbers of the new combination are.
Push Button Combination Padlock
This type of combinatin lock is shown in the
diagram below.

When the correct numbered buttons are depressed
the switch on the base of the lock will be able to move and the shackle will
snap open.
This type of lock consists of a grid which when
moved will open the lock. Notches cut from the buttons will allow this grid to
move and therefore, the lock to open
It is where these notches are located on each
button which decides on the combination of the lock.
The numbers which do not form part of the lock
will have notches which will already be in line with the grid, however the
nothces on the buttons forming the combination will only be in line when they
are depressed therefore allowing the lock to open.