How To Pick A Lock With A Paper Clip

You may not consider lock picking a necessary talent as an honest, upstanding citizen, but it rapidly becomes one when you forget your keys and are locked out of your home more often than not. 

You may even be required to pick the lock of a door behind which someone is helpless and needs immediate assistance. 

You’re unlikely to have lock-picking equipment in your pocket, but if you have a paper clip, you can construct a paper clip lock pick. It’s not the easiest, but it typically gets the job done.

How To Use Paper Clips

This technique requires two paper clips, but you can get by with a single paper clip broken into two parts, a bobby pin or a spare length of electric wire. 

It’s also useful to understand how a standard lockset operates. Unless you have an electronic lock with a touchpad, you’ll see a keyhole for the lockset and maybe a deadbolt. 

You should be able to tell which of these is locked. If both are, no worries; you may open each one separately.

Recognizing the Lockset

The lockset has several spring-loaded pins and a revolving barrel with a hole for each pin. When the door is closed, the barrel’s holes face up, and a pin is placed into each one. 

The barrel will not revolve until all the pins have been driven up and out of the barrel, which the key does when inserted.

Because each pin is put to a distinct depth and must be elevated to a different height to clear the barrel, the key has a unique set of notches. Because the pins are spring-loaded, the key must keep them all in place simultaneously.

Construct A Tension Wrench

First, take one of your paper clips and straighten the first two bends. It would be best if you now had an L-shaped piece with a handle made of an additional loop.

Stretch the paper clip until it is straight as possible with your pliers. It is critical to be thorough with this step since it must be flush with the bottom of the lock. 

You may use your fingers instead of pliers if you don’t have any.

Create Your Rake

Straighten the second paper clip out. Using the pliers, pinch the end of the paper clip and bend the long part 90 degrees to make the first ridge in the rake. 

Place the pliers on the long part of the paper clip and bend at 90 degrees again. Continue until the paper clip has three ridges.

Insert the Tension Wrench

Apply little pressure on the tension wrench in the direction of the lock’s opening. If you’re unsure which direction that the lock will pop open, try turning the wrench towards the right and, then the opposite way to the left to feel for resistance. 

In the beginning, there will be slightly less resistance. If you can’t tell the difference, choose a direction and switch if the lock doesn’t open. 

Maintain the wrench’s applied tension throughout the lock picking procedure. This component is responsible for turning the lock when you raise each pin with the rake.

Now Insert The Rake

Put the pick into the keyhole’s upper portion and “rake”. Raking is when you insert your pick into the bottom of the keyhole and then remove it while shaking the pick in an upward motion. 

You may need to do this multiple times to set a few pins. Keep a certain amount of strain on the tension wrench. If you don’t, then the lock picking will not work.

You will have to be fast, but that doesn’t mean you yank it out, but you should do it so that the action is smooth. Again, this takes practice, which is why few individuals can pick a lock on the first try.

Scrub And Use Tension

Keep a mild grip on the tension wrench as you slide the rake along the pins. To raise the pins, slide the rake forward and backward.

The driver pins will not line properly if you apply too much strain with the tension wrench. As each pin is unpicked, you will notice a little decrease in resistance. 

You may hear a clicking sound and sense a resistance shift in some locks. This procedure should be repeated as needed. Repeat this process until all of the pins are in place. 

The majority of locks feature five or six pins. You may need to apply more stress as additional pins get freed.

Torque To Open

You will have to shake the picks until all the pins are unlocked.  You will have jiggle while applying more pressure using the tension wrench. If you hear the sound of a click that’s a sign to, twist the tension wrench so you can free the lock.

Once the pins are aligned, the lock will unlock with the proper torque on the tension wrench. Once you’ve gained admission or opened the padlock, remove the paper clips.

Conclusion

If you are locked out during the winter, you may need to de-ice the lock before proceeding. It is critical that the lockset barrel can rotate freely.

Lock picking is an art form in certain ways. The procedure is straightforward; nevertheless, several hazards can prevent this activity from being completed effectively. 

If you put too much force on your tension wrench, the paper clip may break, allowing a portion of it to remain inside the lock. Lock picking isn’t as simple as the movies would have us think.

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