Today’s blog is actually a follow up to two previous posts.
In The Great Locker Opening I mentioned that I intended to order another credit card kit and add the tools to the Serenity Plus kit. The new items arrived last night. In my review of the credit card kit I mentioned how nicely finished the items were. The new set was quite different. Not so shiny and with some very distinct burrs on some tools. On the other hand, the five-piece kit actually had six pieces, a duplicate snake being included. My cheap micrometer indicates the cruder picks are 0.2 to 0.5 mm thick while the better finished set are 0.1 to 0.2 mm.
If you read my previous article and the credit card set you received was not a nice as my first set, this is easily and quickly solved.
The burrs were quickly removed with a few swipes of a needle file. 600 grit abrasive paper is usually recommended for polishing picks but I didn’t have any. Given how rough the picks were I used 400 instead and then moved down to 800. This does not require a great deal of effort. About 30 seconds on each side of the pick should be adequate.
Most picks I have do not need polishing. I did recently apply some 800 paper to my Sparrow Worm, Warlock and Octo-rake. I think the two larger picks are designed with American locks in mind so could afford to lose a little bit of thickness. Likewise, the Worm is mainly used in narrow locks. The Worm had also got a bit discoloured so some light polishing cleaned it up.
The Great Locker Opening has an amusing footnote. The other day I noticed one of the lockers I had cleared had a new lock on it. Distinctive, since it was the same model of lock as that I had previously removed. Seems our squatter had got a two for one deal. A quick enquiry revealed the rightful tenant had not started using the locker yet. This may have been one of the quickest picks I have ever done. Not only did I know exactly the right turning tool and pick to use, but I even had the lock’s twin sister to practice on the night before.