Visual Guide to Lock Picking Book Review

Jerry writes, “I’ve read your lock picking tutorial but wanted more information. Do you know a good resource that describes lock picking in more detail? Can you point me toward an easy guide with good illustrations?

Jerry, great question and you’ve come to the right place.

Visual Guide to Lock Picking 3rd Edition

If you’re looking for a great guide to lock picking, the Visual Guide to Lock Picking 3rd Edition is an excellent choice. It’s an inexpensive purchase, and you can find it on many sites online. I keep this guide with my lock picking set for easy reference.

Warded Locks

The first chapter focuses on warded locks and warded padlocks. Warded locks are some of the oldest locks around. They are easy to pick and a good place to begin practicing your lock picking skills. This chapter begins with identifying warded locks and how they function. It goes on to describe how to overcome these locks and best tools for the job.

Pin Tumblers

Most locks you find in the United States are pin tumbler locks. Knowing how pin tumblers work is crucial to understanding how to pick these types of locks. Chapter two describes in detail all the different parts of tumbler locks and how they operate. Learn about raking the pins, shimming a padlock and more. This chapter also reviews the different tools available ranging from picks to an electric pick gun.

Advanced Pin Tumblers

Locks are constantly updating. Advanced pin tumblers feature modified pins or beveled plug holes making them even more difficult to bypass. Chapter three focuses on some of the advanced locks and the sort of obstacles your up against – mushroom pins, modified holes, false sets, etc. It also reviews the necessary tools like spring-loaded tensioners, and plug spinners. I haven’t attempted any of these locks yet, but I’d review this chapter before I started.

Wafer Locks

Wafer locks are common on desks, filing cabinets and car doors. They are not difficult to pick but require some specific torque wrenches. Chapter four explains how wafer locks work and some cool tools like double-sided jigglers. It’s surprising how often people misplace file cabinet keys. This chapter is very handy.

Tubular Locks

Tubular locks are very difficult to pick. They are more advanced than traditional pin tumblers but have some of the same principles, and fortunately, have some similar weaknesses. Chapter five puts quite a few pages into picking tubular locks with several different methods. I especially enjoyed the part about improvised tools. It describes how to fashion picking tools from pens or even cardboard.

Lever Locks

Lever locks also go way back and can be found all around the world, especially in the UK. Modern lever locks have slits cut at different heights. The key lifts the lever to the correct height, letting the bolt side in and out. Chapter six shows you exactly how to pick this style of lock.

Impressioning Tumblers

Impressioning is the art of crafting an actual key. It’s an extremely difficult skill, but if you can master it, results in a working key. Make sure you stock up on blank keys before you begin practicing impressioning. You should also purchase a few different files (for shaping the key). Although this is a very difficult technique, pages 145 – 149 has a great step-by-step guide.

Combination Locks

The last chapter focuses on combination locks. Combination locks are everywhere because they are so convenient. This chapter covers one, two and three wheel combination locks. It describes different notch wheels and how to detect a false notch.

Overall Review

The Visual Guide to Lock Picking describes lots of different lock types and everything you need to know about how they work and the tools to exploit weaknesses. It’s a great book for someone learning about locks and lock picking- including lots of pictures. This guide is also good to keep on hand as a reference before attempting a lock. I highly recommend it.

What do you think? Do you have a lock picking guide?

How to Maintain a Lawnmower – 1 Hour Maintenance

Well, Fall is upon us in full force here in the Free State. About a week ago we passed the peak fall foliage mark, and recent storms have already started to blow leaves down from the trees. We’ll be firing up our mulching mower to take care of some of them, but once the dozen oaks that surround our property start their daily barrage, we’ll turn to bagging them. We usually make a day of it on Black Friday… it’s quite a bit calmer than hitting the sales.

Fall Lawnmower Maintenance

With Fall comes an an excellent time to maintain your lawnmower. While most would put off this activity for the Spring, by doing it now, you’ll be ready to fire up that mower first thing next cutting season… Imagine the feeling of heading out to your garage or shed, adding gas, and starting up a mower that’s ready to rock.

Here’s the few steps you can take now to get a jump on next Season (with links to articles explaining each step in detail). Maintenance should take you less than an hour after you pick-up the necessary parts (oil, spark plug, and air filter, and potentially a new blade). The only significant tool is a grinder, which you’ll either need to purchase or borrow from a friend.

Simple Lawnmower Maintenance Steps

Step 1: Change the Lawnmower’s Oil.  During regular use, the oil will get dirty.  By changing the oil at least once per season, you’ll prolong the mower’s life by years. Total time: 20 minutes.

 

Step 2: Change the Lawnmower’s Air Filter.  Perhaps even more important than the oil is the air filter.  Lawnmower air filters can get extremely dirty over time as they are constantly filtering lawn clipping debris.  Total time: 5 minutes.

Step 3: Change the Lawn Mower’s Spark Plug.  You may only need to perform this step once every 2-3 years, depending on use.  Check the spark plug for wear.  If needed, replace the plug to keep the engine running in top condition. Total time: 5 minutes.

Step 4: Sharpen or Replace the Lawnmower’s Blade. More than any other maintenance task, sharpening your lawnmower’s blade will bring new life to the lawnmower. It’ll cut faster and more evenly, and make the lawnmower perform like new. Total time: 20 minutes.

Self Leveling Cement Delaminating, Crumbling, and Creating Dust

Between six and twelve months ago, we poured four separate 250 sq. ft. quadrants of self-leveling cement (a.k.a. self-leveling mortar, or self-leveling underlayment) onto our basement concrete slab. We selected LevelQuik ES for the job and followed the instructions to the letter… Or so we thought…

Much to my dismay, last week I noticed that a small 3 foot x 8 foot area of the underlayment had an issue. The top 1/16″ of the self leveler was partially crumbling and delaminating from the surface. There was a significant amount of dust in the area and loose cement bits. The issue isn’t systematic across the whole floor. In fact, this section is in the most recent quadrant poured, while other areas over 12 months old are working out just perfectly.  We’re getting ready to insulate the basement and soon after, lay Schluter Ditra and stone tile.

What Causes Self-leveler to Fail?

Before we started the project, we googled extensively for advice on using self leveler on a concrete slab, unfortunately finding little. We’ve subsequently written a great deal about our own experience with self leveler (much of it at that link). Even though information was a bit sparse, we heard repeatedly from tile experts that you must follow subfloor preparation instructions, you must mix the self leveler to the consistency on the package, and you must follow application instructions. We did all that, so what caused the issue?

Unfortunately, we’re not sure. Perhaps one of the last batches of self leveler wasn’t completely mixed, or some contaminate got into the batch, or the water/powder ratio wasn’t quite right. Any of these could have caused the problem. We’re pretty sure the subfloor isn’t part of the problem, since the delamination is limited to the top 1/16″ layer.

Our Solution: Prime the Area with LevelQuik Primer

LevelQuik Primer is a latex-based primer designed to prepare a surface for pouring LevelQuik on top. We noticed in using this primer on other sections of the subfloor and existing SLU that it tends to bind up any loose dust on the LevelQuik and create a smoother surface. We applied full strength primer to the 24 square foot area and, for now, all is well. This solution seems to have worked. The surface layer appears to be stable, and we’ve noticed no further delamination.

Other Self Leveler Problems & Solutions

We’re lucky that this problem isn’t systematic across the floor, or all the way to the slab. If that were the case, the only solution would be to remove the SLU as much as possible, correct the issue (if it is subfloor related), and re-pour the area. Since we’ve got radiant heating wire in the way, that would prove very, very difficult.

For those of you out there considering this project, remember: subfloor preparation and following application instructions is absolutely essential.

What do you think? Ever had a problem with self-leveler, or looking for advice on working with the material? Leave a comment here, and don’t forget to use the site’s search function. There’s a lot of good information available.

DIY Round Up – Fall Container Garden Edition

Just getting your weekend started?  Here’s a few good reads with your morning coffee:

Green Gardenista headlines this DIY round-up with another cute fall container garden (pictured right!) Better hurry and follow her instructions.  Fall will be a passing memory in just two months… and this would look great out front of your house for Thanksgiving.

Charles and Hudson gives us their 10 Favorite DIY / Home Improvement iPhone Apps.  All four of us here at OPC are iPhone junkies… Couldn’t resist a link back to this one.

Home Construction Improvement gives us very detailed instructions for building an attic stair cover.  Get this done before the Winter hits for some great savings on your heating bill.

Young House Love gives us a few tips for going green this Winter, courtesy of ‘almost Dr. Dan’… My favorite: boiling water is boiling water… no need to get it to a roaring boil… You’re just wasting electricity converting water to steam at that point.

Centsational Girl wants to get your best harvest or holiday craft idea or a recipe… She’s got 10 spots open to guest blog on her site; all you have to do is send some pics and a write-up. Maybe we’ll share our gingerbread recipe!

And finally from yours truly… still have an uninsulated basement?  Re-read our article on basement insulation and hop to it already!  This Winter’s looking to be a cold one — getting the insulation done now will save you a boatload on energy costs.  Trust us, we know how bad it can be without it.

And there you have it… Happy Saturday!

P.S. Our little site crossed over 1,000,000 unique visitors last week!  Thanks so much for making One Project Closer a success.

Insulate Hot Water Pipes to Save Energy

We know that insulating your water heater can improve your homes energy efficiency but what about hot water pipes? Insulated pipes retain heat better thereby lowering energy consumption and benefiting the environment. Insulating exposed pipe is inexpensive, quick, and easy – the perfect DIY job.

Benefits of Insulated Pipes

Insulated pipes can keep water 2 – 4 degrees hotter than uninsulated pipes. That means you can turn down your water heater temperature but take the same shower you always have. Also, hot water arrives faster and takes less time to reach the desired temperature meaning less water is wasted.

Most people do not have access to all their pipes making it difficult to retrofit insulation, so you may be wondering if this is really beneficial. However, most people do have access to their water heater and insulating the first 3 feet of pipe can have the biggest impact.

Heat Loss from Uninsulated Pipe

This is a tough question to answer quantitatively because your heat loss depends on many different factors.

• Pipe size and length
• Water temperature, and ambient air temperature
• Type of heat loss – conduction, convection, radiation
• etc.

If you’re interested in running the numbers yourself, here’s a resource to calculate heat loss. If you’re not interested in running the numbers, just remember this simple rule of thumb.

tip: if the pipe, water-heater, etc. is warm to the touch, you are losing heat.

Pipe Insulation Costs, Comparison

There are several different ways to insulate your pipes. Here’s a list of the most common insulation types and associated costs (prices from Big Orange).

Foam Pipe Insulation
Foam insulation features a lengthwise slit allowing you to wrap it around the pipe. It’s easy to install as you just cut each segment to length with a utility knife. Secure each piece with zip-ties and cover all junctions with duct-tape. R values vary because of materials and thicknesses but usually range from 2-4. Rubber foam prices are about $0.90 per linear foot while the regular polyethylene foam costs about $0.20 per linear foot. Self-seal polyethylene foam runs about $0.27 per linear foot.

Pipe Wrap Insulation
You can also choose a pipe wrap insulation. This is also easy to install but rather time consuming. You wrap the insulation around the pipe in a spiral fashion allowing the tape some overlap. You can pickup fiberglass wrap but R-value is only 1 – 2. A better option is a foam and foil tape wrap with a claimed R-value of 3. Fiberglass wrap costs about $0.14 per linear foot while foam and foil wrap is $0.32 per linear foot.

Fiberglass Roll
Fiberglass batting can also be secured around pipes. It’s a bit cumbersome to work with and there’s the typical itchiness afterward, but you can achieve a good R-value (depends on thickness). The price I found was $1.48 per linear foot (15″ wide x 3.5″ thick).

Fiberglass Pipe Cover
These covers are similar to the foam insulators in that it’s a self-sealing tube, but there are some key differences. These tubes feature fiberglass insulation with a foil and paper jacket. They are designed to be used near furnaces and water heaters where foam pipe might not be appropriate. They have an R-value of about 2 and cost $2.06 per linear foot.

What do you think? Are your pipes insulated?
Image courtesy of johncarljohnson

UtiliTech Tripod Work Light Review: High Output Work Lights

We’re just about finished the electrical rough-in of our basement game room.  One of the final steps is to remove the original lighting circuit that powers four ceramic keyless overhead fixtures that the builder installed in the original unfinished basement.  We’ve run Romex drops for can lights to be installed post-drywall, so once the existing circuit is removed, we’ll be in the dark.

We decided to head to our local Lowes and pick-up the closest thing we could find to good temporary work lighting.  Our choice: two UtiliTech 1000 watt, halogen dual-lamp work lights.  Now, to be sure, these lamps are a bit overkill for our basement project.  You don’t need 2000 watts of light for a 1000 sq. foot work area. But at $45 each, we figured we could use them in the basement now, and for any future projects (including outdoor and garage remodeling projects).  Plus, we thought it’d be fun to review them for you all…

UtiliTech 1000 watt Halogen Tripod Work Light Review

The UtiliTech 1000 watt tripod work lights are part of a family of work lighting that also includes single 500 watt ground-based lights and a more powerful 1300 watt dual-lamp version similar to the version we purchased.  We opted for the 1000 watt tripods for their directional flexibility and height adjustment.  Also, 1300 watts just seemed a little too overkill, even for us.  Here’s what you need to know:

Light Output: At 500 watts of halogen light per lamp, these lights are very bright.  The bulbs are encased in a plastic/metal combination box that directs the light to the work area. The result is a lighting range of about 145 degrees wide and 145 degrees high (estimates, not measured numbers). In fact, the lamps are so bright that you definitely do not want to look directly into them, and there’s a warning in the instruction manual about this. We ended up directing the light at the ceiling in the basement so that the bulb could not be seen directly.  This provided ample indirect light for about 700 square feet of work area.

Heat & Energy Efficiency: Of the 1000 watts these lights consume, our guess is that a good 75% of it is converted to heat. In other words, these lamps get very hot. You cannot touch the lamp boxes during operation, and they require a cool-down period of about 5 minutes after they’re turned off before handling. You also must be careful not to aim the lamp at an object closer than 3 feet away, especially a flammable object.  The lights put out enough energy to start a fire.

Lamp Stand Stability: One of the most important factors in a good tripod work lamp is the stability of the lamp stand.  We opted to purchase the newer version of the 1000 watt UtiliTech lamps for $45 (there was an older model at Lowes for $30). The tripod construction looked more sturdy on the newer version (better adjustment mechanism, larger-diameter shaft, thicker gauge plastics).

It’s still not quite as sturdy as we’d prefer, but it is acceptable. In particular, we found the connection between the upper metal structure and the top and the shaft to be a little loose.  The stand feels reasonably stable, but it isn’t hard to knock the whole thing over if you get snagged on the cord. You’ll want to setup the tripod in a place where you’re unlikely to hit the cord, and potentially duct tape the cord to the floor to avoid accidents. If the lamps get jarred, especially while they’re on and hot, you’ll likely lose a bulb (see below).

Stand and Directional Adjustment: One of the best features of the UtiliTech tripod lamps are their easy-to-use height adjustment clamps (pictured right).  The stand can be adjusted from 2.5′ to 6′ with very little effort, and the unique squeeze-style adjustment mechanism outperforms the traditional twist-lock style common to this genre that is slightly harder to master. The individual lamps can be rotated 360 degrees on the tripod and can be aimed up or down with easy adjustment knobs that hold the lamps in place well.  You’ll have no trouble pointing the light where you want it and keeping it there.

Halogen Bulb Life: During the first week of working with these lamps, we failed to tighten one of the vertical directional adjustment clamps on the lamp. The lamp case fell backwards onto the upper section of the metal stand structure and instantly burned out the bulb.  Replacement cost is not too expensive at about $3.50/per, but we’d have preferred a little more resilience. We’ll take the blame for that early bulb burn-out. If we experience any other early burn outs, we’ll update this post.

Also, it’s worth noting that during installation, you must be careful not to touch the bulbs with bare hands as oil from your hands can actually shorten the bulb’s life.

Summary: We’ve had a good experience with our two UtiliTech tripod work lights, despite the few drawbacks we’ve cited here.  If you’re in need of high-output, reasonably stable work lamps, these UtiliTech lamps might be right for you.  We maintain a list of places you can find a 10% off Lowes Coupons that might be worth a look if you’re planning a large purchase along with these lamps.

What do you think? Got a question for us about these lamps, feel free to post it in the comments and we’ll do our best to answer.  Always feel free to weigh in with your own experience!

Note: This review was not sponsored by Lowes, Utilitech, or any advertiser. UtiliTech Lamps Photo credit: lowes.com.

Your Take: Workshop, Tool Organization

I was thinking the other day that even if you have a giant workbench, tons of drawers, floor cabinets, wall cabinets, rolling carts, and even a trackwall, you still need to have some kind of organization system for your workshop (links to Craftsman tool storage reviews). Being organized means using the available storage, or building some storage, in the most intuitive and efficient manner. It saves you time looking for that specific tool, and makes the most out of your storage space.

As I attempt to keep my small workspace clean, a few over-arching guidelines came into my head. I’ll share those guidelines but I’m curious what everybody else does. Is your shop organized? How do you keep everything in order? Leave a comment with helpful hints you’ve learned about keeping your workshop tidy.

Tool Organization Guidelines

Here are some guidelines that I use to help stay organized

Keep related tools together
Grouping your tools together is a great place to begin. I try to group tools by job. For instance, my multimeter, wire-strippers, wire nuts, and spare outlets are all related to electric projects, so I keep them all in the same drawer. The same is true for painting supplies like brushes, rollers, and painters tape. You don’t have to group tools by application, but you should do it in a meaningful way.

Tool size dictates location
Now that your tools are arranged into groups, you have to choose where they will live. Let the tool (and group) size help you determine the best place for them. Hand tools often fit well in pull out drawers. I have one drawer full of screwdrivers – large, small, Phillips, flat-head, precision, ratcheting, multi-tip, etc. Small power tools can be heavy and irregularly shaped making cabinet shelves a good place for storage. One of my shelves stores a circular saw, jig saw, orbiting sander and grinder.

Special Considerations
I think you should take extra caution for sharp tools like hand saws and blades. Small blades like utility knives, pen knives, and box cutters I store in a shallow drawer. Shallow drawers are best because everything is clearly visible and you’ll never have to dig around. Hand saws, coping saws, hacksaws and the like are easily stored on hooks. Hanging these saws from pegboard or a trackwall keeps them up, out of the way and beyond the reach of small children.

What do you think? What’s your take on tool organization? Any helpful insights?

Dimmer Switches: Capacity, Heat Dissipation, Maximum Wattage, and More…

Dimmer switches are one of those great modern marvels that make life better… They can set the mood for a romantic evening, or keep you from squinting when you’re waking up in the morning. We’re installing four dimmer switches that will control the overhead lighting in our basement, and figured you might want to know a little bit more about how this life-improving gadget works.

How Dimmer Switches Work

Back in the olden days, dimmer switches varied the voltage that traveled to the lamp using a rheostat, basically an adjustable resistor that would sit in a serial electrical circuit with the lamp.  When the dimmer was set to full brightness, the rheostat applies little resistance, allowing the full voltage to travel to the lamp.  When the dimmer was set to low brightness, the rheostat applies a high resistance, converting some of the electrical energy into heat.  The result: the dimmer switch could get hot – not as bad as a small oven sitting inside a wall plate, but enough to pose a fire threat. These dimmers were extremely inefficient – they wasted about 50% of the energy at quarter-brightness – not such a great trade!

Travel forward to the present day.  Today’s dimmers work by very quickly turning electricity on and off 120 times per second using a device called a TRIAC. The result is that a lamp is on less often, thereby emitting less light.  Because the on/off action happens so quickly, our eyes can’t detect the flicker. The benefit: much more of the electricity heads straight to the lamp, and little is wasted to heat. Even with the improved efficiency, however, some power is still consumed in the on/off switching mechanism (between 1% and 3%).  This energy is converted to heat and must be dissipated through the wall plate into the room.

How Dimmers Dissipate Heat

Dimmers dissipate this heat by heat sinking the electronics in the dimmer switch with the metal faceplate at the front of the dimmer.  Take a look at this picture of the four Leviton digital fade dimmers installed in a four-gang box in our basement:

Each of the dimmers has a metal surface plate for heat sinking. See how the two outside Dimmers have fins on their exterior edge, while the inside dimmers have no fins? According to Leviton, a dimmer switch with both sets of fins intact is rated for 600 watts, with one set of fins intact, 500 watts, and with no fins intact, 400 watts.  The limitation is because a dimmer with fewer fins cannot dissipate as much heat. So, our overhead lighting in each zone will be limited.  For the two outside switches, the limit is 500 watts, and for the two inside switches, 400 watts.  We plan to use energy efficient dimmable CFLs, and expect each circuit to carry only 200 watts.

Maximum Watts on a Dimmer Switch

Dimmer switches are usually rated for 600 watts.  Always check the specific dimmer switch you plan to install for wattage limits.

How Energy Efficient Bulbs are Changing Things

Back in the day, a typical dimmer switch would be limited to controlling six 100 watt fixtures.  With today’s energy efficient lighting, 100 watts of traditional incandescent output can be achieved with a 23 watt compact florescent.  Theoretically, that same dimmer switch could control more than 25 of these lamps.  Just another reason to make the switch to CFLs…

What do you think? Do you use dimmers in your own home?  Ever give a thought to the electronics behind them?

(photo: exfordy)

Crane Removes a 100 ft. Tall Tree

You may remember a post some time ago about a dead tree nearby my home. Fred reminded me of an easy way to determine the tree height using similar triangles and I estimated the height just below 100 feet tall. Well, the HOA decided the tree was a danger and paid to have it taken down. Turns out my calculations were only about 10 feet short! Here’s how they took down this huge tree.

This is the view from our front porch. You can see they brought a sizable crane with them.

Here’s another view. Look closely and you’ll see the outline of a man being suspended by the crane. They give this guy a chain-saw and he takes the tree apart bit-by-bit.

Check out the boards they put down to try and protect the ground. Unfortunately, a crane of this size leaves some damage. My neighbor has lots of ruts and even her sidewalk was broken up.

They had the tree down in about 4 hours. Here’s a couple pictures of what was leftover. You can see all the rot inside the tree core.

What do you think? Ever have a tree taken out like this?

Tandem (aka Split or Double) Breakers for a Full Breaker Panel

On Monday, I explained how to run a new circuit from a breaker panel.  But what happens if your panel is already full and can’t accept a new breaker?  In many homes, builders don’t leave free slots in the breaker panel.  Why?  Larger breaker panels cost money, and that comes right out of profits.

If you need to run a new circuit but are fresh out of slots, there is a solution: the tandem breaker.  A tandem breaker will allow you to run two circuits using only a single slot in the panel.  Take a look at this picture of a breaker panel with the cover off that features a few different types of breakers, including a tandem breaker:

Tandem Breakers, Single Breakers, and 220V Breakers

In the picture above, there are three types of breakers.  The bottom left is a tandem breaker that controls two 110V circuits.  Above that is a single breaker that controls one 110V circuit.  On the bottom right is a 220V breaker.

Single breaker: this type of breaker is the most common in a panel.  It is a single breaker connected to one 110V source on the backplane.  It can control one 110-volt circuit, and has a single screw to connect the hot wire on the circuit.

Tandem (aka Split, double) breaker: this breaker is connected to one 110V source, but provides control for two circuits.  The advantage of this type of breaker is it only takes one slot on the panel.  It has two screws, one for each of the hot wires on the two separate circuits. Note: you cannot get a 220V circuit from this breaker because it is only connected to one 110V source.

220 volt breaker: this breaker takes up two slots and is connected to both 110V sources in the panel (the two sources are out of phase, hence why you get 220 volts from this breaker).  This breaker takes two slots and has two screws: 1 for the black hot wire, and 1 for the white hot wire.

Where to Buy Tandem Breakers

You can find tandem breakers for most panels at the local home improvement store, or at an electrical supply house.

Electrical Code Concerns

Some panels are designed to allow for tandem breakers, and some are not. In a conversation with an electrician on this point, he noted that some panels will have enough ground bus and neutral bus slots to handle more wires than there are breaker slots. The panel will usually be labeled something similar to a “30-40″ – meaning that it has 30 slots but can accommodate up to 40 total circuits. In other words, it could have 10 tandem breakers installed.

Obviously, installing tandem breakers in excess of the rating of the panel is dangerous, and probably illegal in your area. You should instead look to upgrade the panel to a new, larger panel with plenty of space.

Questions? Feel free to leave them in the comments section.

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