My name is Jason… aka XBMODS. I live on the Isle of Thanet, down on the South East coast of England and have been picking locks as a hobby since 2018. I am an active member of the locksport community and have been making my own handmade custom lock picks almost since I started.
When I first set about making lock picks I soon found out it wasn’t as easy as the top custom pick makers were making it look. Fortunately I was able to badger the likes of Tipene Muller, Wez Picks, Jeff Burke and Daz Evers for hints and tips of how they did things.
After I had made 6 or so picks my confidence was starting to grow, enough to actually offer a custom lock pick to a fellow picker I knew as a gift, for free. I did not expect this reply, ‘No thanks, I have picks already’. My confidence was knocked for six, I was sure my work was getting better, in fact the fifth pick that I made (pic above) is still my goto favourite today! This left me unsure and confused about whether I should even bother carrying on making at all.
A month or so later I bumped into the amazingly talented Wez Picks at a uklocksport meet in Bristol so we sat down for a chat and to look over each other’s work. Wez’s picks were incredible, stuffed full of detail and amazing profile designs, he really is a world class craftsman, I was blown away and I felt my work wasn’t even worthy to show him! He asked me why I would think that so I explained the rejection story above.
Inspecting my work it was clear Wez was actually genuinely impressed with what he was seeing which was a massive boost straight off the bat. He then proceeded to give me the pep talk I needed to rebuild my confidence and start making more picks. We even set up a pick trade, something I would not have thought possible before the chat. To this day I still call Wez my guru, without that talk I definitely wouldn’t be writing this.
Since then I have made a fair few for other lock pickers and traded custom lock picks with most of the top makers out there. OK, maybe not Ratyoke but I do have one of his picks!
Custom lock pick makers who I have traded with include Wez Picks, Daz Evers, Jeff Burke, John Eggington, Matt’s Lock Pit, Tipene Muller, MonkeyLockPicks, Pacmandalore, Diurin, Harry Bow, Papa Smurf, Lambda2, EBT.
Renowned lock pickers who own at least one of my pieces include Lock Noob, Tallan Pick, Obijanje Brave, MHM, Mr Nobody, SasPes, Ucof, Pickbeard, Baldiloks, Tsiolkovsky, GxAxV, Toni302V8, Uklockpicka, Chris Evans.
I take great pride in the finish of my work and on average I spend around 8 hours on one pick, often much longer but as with all handmade items please expect to find some very minor imperfections. Absolutely nothing that would affect the function or form of the tool though. Perfection is over rated anyway. At the end of the day despite all the fussing and polishing I still like to consider my work as a tool that will be useful.
Have a look around the site and you will find a selection of custom lock picks I have made that are for sale in the shop or you can just browse through some more of my previous work.
Thanks for taking the time to read this far, I hope you enjoy the site.
Jason
Boring stuff like shipping costs, T’s and C’s etc
£1.50 delivery for all UK orders.
Non domestic orders will be charged at £12 per order and sent via a tracked service. Orders should not generally be taxable, however it is your responsibility to pay any import duties due on arrival IF they are incurred and to ensure these items are permitted in your country.
Once shipped orders cannot be cancelled. Only packages that have been unopened may be able to be returned by prior agreement within 28 days of purchase. Any questions, please feel free to ask first.
If you don’t see anything you like that’s fine, I do occassionly do commission work but not very often, just ask.
Get in touchAlternatively there are some fantastic lock pick makers out there who also sell some of their work.
Lambda2