HOW TUMBLERS WORK - cont.

Wafer tumblers work in the same way, but they slide within grooves cut into the lock plug and are in one piece (except for some high security set ups that use split tumblers . . . of no concern here.)  The cylinder in which the plug rotates has a space above the plug that allows these tumblers to protrude out of the plug when in the locked condition, or when the wrong key has been inserted. The wafer has a rectangular cut-out in the center of the tumbler to allow the key to pass through.  The cut-out in some tumblers are higher than in others, with a variance of usually five or six specific positions.  The lands of the key (the flat spots between the peaks in the key cuts) fall right at the grooves in which the tumblers ride.  Because different wafers have differently positioned cuts (vertically), the tops of the tumblers will be positioned either at the shear line (if the key is the Techniques used to pick pin tumbler locks generally work with wafer locks because in both cases your objective is to position the wafers, for one brief instant, right at the shear line -- just as the correctly cut key would do.  In fact, with wafer tumblers the process is usually much easier and you'll rarely have "rake" to open the lock.  Now take a look at the next illustration, showing a pick (a rake, in this case) inserted in the keyway of our single-pinned practice lock.  In the first illustration, the  It is across the shear line, The second illustration shows the rake having lifted the bottom pin just the right amount, bringing the conjuncture of the top and bottom pins to the shear line.  Now obviously you won't be able to see this as it happens unless you purchase one of our Cut-Away Practice Locks (a very good idea, in fact!), but you can picture this in your mind now that you've seen it illustrated here. Picking a fully pinned (5- or 6-pinned) lock cylinder is done in the same way, but you must bring each bottom pin in each separate stack up to the shear line while turning tension is being applied . . . a very small amount of it!  You won't be able to bring them all up at the same time in the same try unless a good deal of luck is in your corner . . . but by bringing each pin to the shear line and allowing the plug to turn a FRACTION, just enough to trap the top pin in its upper chamber, you'll eventually have all five or six top pins isolated from the bottom pins and the plug will turn (because you are maintaining that tiny bit of turning tension with your tension wrench). This should give you a good idea of what you're working toward as you practice practice practice. For a complete tutorial, you can purchase the downloadable version of How To Pick Locks, or buy the giant Locksmith's Master Resource CD-ROM . . . both items are in .pdf format so you can view them with either PC or Mac. How To Pick Locks (web-based)