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Dropped $180 on lock picks and a practice lock last year, and I just want to warn anyone thinking about getting into locksmithing as a hobby
So about a year ago I watched one of those YouTube videos of a guy opening a padlock in 12 seconds and thought it looked like the coolest hobby ever. I went on Amazon that same night and bought a 24 piece pick set for $85 plus a clear practice lock for another $20, then grabbed a couple of real deadbolts from the ReStore in Dayton for like $15 each. Fast forward to now and I can only reliably open the see through lock, which is basically a cheat code since you can literally see the pins. Every real lock I try either takes me 40 minutes of swearing or I just give up and use the key like a normal person. The worst part is the lock picking community online makes it look easy because they only post the 5 second wins and never the 200 failed attempts. I'm not saying don't try it, but the learning curve is way steeper than those videos make it seem and my picks are now sitting in a drawer next to a half finished model ship. Has anyone here gotten past the beginner wall with this stuff or did you also end up quitting after a few weeks?
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benlewis2d ago
Did you ever think that maybe the practice lock being easy is the whole point of buying it? You're supposed to build muscle memory on the clear one until you can feel each pin without looking, and that takes months of daily work, not a few weekends. Most guys who get good at this put in an hour a night for like six months before they can pop a real deadbolt in under a minute. You bought the tools and expected the skill to come free with them, which is like buying a guitar and being mad you can't play Stairway after a year. The 40 minutes of swearing is the actual hobby, that's the part where your hands are learning something your eyes can't teach them.
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