Re: Mortise door lock picks ?.
The bottom picture shows the tool complete minus the tension pin. The tool follows classic lines with two deviations. The first was brought about by a lack of experience and it figured that where-ever I put the tensioning 'knob' on the tool shaft, it would be wrong for someone, so I have made it adjustable and the knob can be fixed at any position on the length of the shaft. Just slide it to where you want it and tighten the set screw.
If you look at the first picture you can see I have added a slot just above the groove on the knob to enable the picking wire to be 'threaded' into the tool and this makes it very easy to change the picking wire for a different size.
That leaves us only with the tension pin, which we know requires different lengths to suit different locks. I now have two lever locks and know what length of tension pin they require, what I don't know is the length that will be required for the next lock I encounter. I have three choices, first a different tool for each lock type ..... or a single tool with an adjustable tension pin length .... or a replaceable pin. I have a simple design for the latter option, but as always do not yet know how well it will work out in practice. The problem being the amount of torsion required to be applied to the 'tension' tool to make a lever bind and the resultant wear on the pin and pin hole. The strongest option would be to have a tool of each size, the most flexible .... bearing in mind we can already change the picking wires .... is to be able to change the length of the tension pin. The safe route is to drill the shaft for a pin (probably 2.0mm ground down to less than 1.5mm wide and profiled in the usual manner). The end of the tool shaft is drilled and tapped to accept a set screw. Now the pin becomes interchangeable. If it is subsequently found that this is not strong enough, then the pin can be permanently attached.