In general, locks are nothing more than a set of pins blocking a cylinder from moving. Insert a key – and you line those pins up in a way that no longer binds the movement of the cylinder and the lock rotates freely. There is, however, another way to get the lock to rotate – and the art of doing that is called “lockpicking.”
There are two ways to pick locks. The first way is the finesse way. You use your tools to carefully set each pin and finally open the lock. This method takes a lot of time to master – but with practice you can become a “finesse” picker.
The second way involves luck – mostly – and a lot of shaking. The idea is that you just put your picks in there and bounce them around and hope that you set the pins just right. If it works – great – if not – start over.
To help the second method work better, vibrating picks were invented. These $60-120 tools shake their pick so that all you have to do is adjust the tension and hope you get lucky. Vibrating lock picks have been around for a long time – but their price kept them out of the hands of the hobbiest. At least – until now.
Inventgeek has an article online describing how you can take a $9 Oral B flosser and convert it into a really nice vibrating pick. This, along with some lockpicking instruction, could make picking locks much easier – although you will certainly not be considered “skilled” for using this method.
I think that’s great. Lockpicking is hard work, and combining it with dental appliances, well, why not?
haha…i like the idea. You thinking of adding such a device to your small arsenal of lockpicking tools???