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Re:Locksmith gets less tips and more price complaints for be... by evilduck on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @11:44AM (#2008698)
If someone is a skilled locksmith, it doesn't take much longer to do it by hand. Most doors and locks don't take much more than 30s to rake, and maybe a minute or two to pick. The pick gun is conceptually/mechanically the same as raking a lock, with the same limitations, but it requires no skill or practice in comparison (it's really a rake gun, not a pick gun, and can't defeat higher quality locks).

So as someone with some knowledge of the profession, I would tip a locksmith far more if they picked it by hand in display of skill and dedication than if they resorted to no-skill tools, especially since it will probably take the same amount of my time.

Re:Locksmith gets less tips and more price complaints for be... by kragen on Wednesday December 15, 2010 @04:32PM (#2009888)
Most doors and locks don't take much more than 30s to rake, and maybe a minute or two to pick.

This is true of the pin-tumbler and wafer-tumbler locks that are common in the US, and for that matter there are plenty of "locked" US doors that can be opened with a credit card; but in places that have crime, pin-tumbler locks are fairly unusual, at least for the doors of houses and businesses.