Atton Rand & miscellaneous names (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
suitably_heroic) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2015-07-09 11:43 am
suitably_heroic) wrote in fandomhigh2015-07-09 11:43 am
Entry tags:
Sneaking 101, Thursday
They met in an ordinary classroom today. There was a small lock embedded in a wooden plate on every table. Atton sat on the table as he waited for everyone to file in. And then another minute or so after they did, because he had a cup of coffee and he was going to finish it first, all right?
"Okay, so we're going to start with some of the basics, first," he said. "If you want to sneak into a place, it's usually a good idea to know how to get in in the first place. Now, in my time and place, most of the locks are electronic. In yours, however, you see a lot of these."
He held up a sawn-in-half basic pin tumbler lock.
"So we're going to go through how to pick one," he said, "And if we have time left, I'll show you how to fool a magnetic card lock." Hashtag totally legal.
"Anyway, the pin tumbler lock. As the name kind of says, it functions through a series of pins within the mechanism. In order to open the lock, you have to raise each pin so it lines up right with the shear line, which is the point where the pin breaks in half, so to speak. So to get the lock to rotate, you've got to raise those pins up manually."
He held up a tiny wrench. "This is the tension wrench," he said. "You need it. It keeps tension on the bottom of the lock, which will cause it to rotate just a little when you lift one of the pins right. Which means you'll want to angle that tension just slightly in the direction you'd twist a key to if you opened it. The reason this works is because the pin is actually two pins: the driver pin up top, the key pin down below. Thanks to the twisting that happens because of the tension wrench, the driver pin will get stuck while the key pin drops back down. Which is what you want to happen to all the pins so you can open the lock."
Next, he held up the lockpick. "That's where this one comes in," he said. "This part's pretty simple. You rake the pick back and forth until each driver pin is stuck. Some locks are a little more finicky and you'll have to do each pin at a time, but usually, you can get a couple."
He put down the half-a-lock. "And that's it. The rest is just practice. So go on, practice."
"Okay, so we're going to start with some of the basics, first," he said. "If you want to sneak into a place, it's usually a good idea to know how to get in in the first place. Now, in my time and place, most of the locks are electronic. In yours, however, you see a lot of these."
He held up a sawn-in-half basic pin tumbler lock.
"So we're going to go through how to pick one," he said, "And if we have time left, I'll show you how to fool a magnetic card lock." Hashtag totally legal.
"Anyway, the pin tumbler lock. As the name kind of says, it functions through a series of pins within the mechanism. In order to open the lock, you have to raise each pin so it lines up right with the shear line, which is the point where the pin breaks in half, so to speak. So to get the lock to rotate, you've got to raise those pins up manually."
He held up a tiny wrench. "This is the tension wrench," he said. "You need it. It keeps tension on the bottom of the lock, which will cause it to rotate just a little when you lift one of the pins right. Which means you'll want to angle that tension just slightly in the direction you'd twist a key to if you opened it. The reason this works is because the pin is actually two pins: the driver pin up top, the key pin down below. Thanks to the twisting that happens because of the tension wrench, the driver pin will get stuck while the key pin drops back down. Which is what you want to happen to all the pins so you can open the lock."
Next, he held up the lockpick. "That's where this one comes in," he said. "This part's pretty simple. You rake the pick back and forth until each driver pin is stuck. Some locks are a little more finicky and you'll have to do each pin at a time, but usually, you can get a couple."
He put down the half-a-lock. "And that's it. The rest is just practice. So go on, practice."
Re: Practice With Your Lock
So she was working on hers with deep concentration, fussing around with it until she got it right. And yes, it was pretty disconcerting how simple the process was.