Wear and Tear

[Grifter]

Just out of curiosity, how much of the LP Village stuff has to be replaced after Defcon each year, and what does it end up costing to do so?

I have to imagine a bunch of unskilled pickers using and abusing the gear takes its toll.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Wear and Tear

Just out of curiosity, how much of the LP Village stuff has to be replaced after Defcon each year, and what does it end up costing to do so?

I have to imagine a bunch of unskilled pickers using and abusing the gear takes its toll.

there's a sort of breakdown for all the public hardware that falls into three categories...

1. TOOOL-exclusive demo stuff - these are items that are supposed to more or less remain on our back table and are used during my lectures and the mini-demonstrations that the group gives in the village and elsewhere. my "four uber cases" sort of have at least one of every lock imaginable and are useful in Q&A sessions, etc. but once in a while some of them will somehow wind up out in the public area. they tend to be recovered quickly, however, and they hold up well. i have almost all my original gear from when i started putting those cases together. even the bump hardware is fairing ok.

2. public demo and training kits - these are the sort of "progressive pinning" assortments that i make... with the same lock repeated over and over, with pins removed in some so that people can learn to pick with just one pin stack, then two, then three, etc. i also put together special locks where people can learn what spool pins and other specialty pins feel like. they tend to survive a year or two and then get rebuilt... as much for reasons of making them more modern or lightweight than for reasons of wear and tear.

3. junky/clunky public table hardware - these are locks that are sort of beat up already or simply things that we don't care about or expect to see survive the con. since they are very cheap and since they take a huge fucking beating through shimming, i often purchase about half a dozen master combination locks. there are also lots of simple 3-pin padlocks, and other simple stuff. people often donate doorknobs, deadbolts, and other heavy gear that i don't ever want to carry home so they tend to remain on tables when we leave. about three or four bump practice locks also often don't survive a con. that's just the cost of doing business. i tend to also scatter some of the older and more cumbersome tools that i have around on the public tables with no thoughts of seeing them again. somehow i wind up with people donating picks that have weird handles and making tension wrenches out of wiper blades, etc. i just leave all that stuff out and don't look to collect it at the end of a con.

i'd say that overall, it costs about $200 to $300 to put a lockpick village together, when you factor in the shipping and/or airline surcharges and lost/damaged equipment. that's not too bad at all, in the big picture.

[Grifter]

Re: Wear and Tear

So the public use stuff is considered a lost cause as it's rolled out. I figured that might be the case. :)