What Type of Pick is This?

[[CAVE]Lawrence]

I'll do my best to describe it. Just imagine you have a pick in your hand, and you're holding it the regular way.

Now, imagine, that the pick is about 5 mm high, times 1 mm in width, times around 1 cm in length. This pick is like a snake pick, but the waves go sideways. So as you're holding it the way one normally holds a pick, looking from the top, you can see the waves go from left to right. There are three waves to the left, and two to the right. I'll try and post a picture, but my camera is old and can't focus on it properly.

[[CAVE]Lawrence]

I finally found a picture of it, but no explanation. It's the one on the far right.

http://hackershomepage.com/lockpick-set.jpg

[Squelchtone]

That is a dimple lock pick.

Some locks around the world have keys that have cuts on the flat of the key instead of the edge like we are used to in the USA. The cuts are not as deep as the cuts on a Schlage house key, so they are called dimples. The little dimples or craters are sometimes very shallow and sometimes go deeper to represent the length of the pins inside the lock. Since there is more surface area on the flat side of a key, you'll often see 2 rows of dimples, which correspond to 2 or more rows of pins inside the lock.

Kaba, DOM, Mul-T-Lock are well known dimple lock manufacturers, as is Sargent Keso in the USA.

That pick is used in a raking fashion, in and out until "picked"

Here is a very nice post about some hand made dimple lock picks a member here made back in 2004 viewtopic.php?t=2980&start=15


A very good analog can be found here, where the person uses a technique called impressioning to make a working key for a lock without prior knowledge of what the key looks like. Notice that the impressioned (filed) key looks pretty much like a dimple pick, and works just as well as having the real key with the nice perfect circle shaped dimples that the factory made.
http://mylockpickingworld.com/impressioning-3/



Squelchtone

[[CAVE]Lawrence]

Wow ok, thanks a lot.

I need to find one of these locks to try it out.

[billdeserthills]

That is a dimple lock pick.

Some locks around the world have keys that have cuts on the flat of the key instead of the edge like we are used to in the USA. The cuts are not as deep as the cuts on a Schlage house key, so they are called dimples. The little dimples or craters are sometimes very shallow and sometimes go deeper to represent the length of the pins inside the lock. Since there is more surface area on the flat side of a key, you'll often see 2 rows of dimples, which correspond to 2 or more rows of pins inside the lock.

Kaba, DOM, Mul-T-Lock are well known dimple lock manufacturers, as is Sargent Keso in the USA.

That pick is used in a raking fashion, in and out until "picked"

Here is a very nice post about some hand made dimple lock picks a member here made back in 2004 viewtopic.php?t=2980&start=15


A very good analog can be found here, where the person uses a technique called impressioning to make a working key for a lock without prior knowledge of what the key looks like. Notice that the impressioned (filed) key looks pretty much like a dimple pick, and works just as well as having the real key with the nice perfect circle shaped dimples that the factory made.
http://mylockpickingworld.com/impressioning-3/



Squelchtone

Has the bottom key been hand-filed? Does it work?

[Squelchtone]

yes, and it works. the photos and videos are at this link: http://mylockpickingworld.com/impressioning-3/

[nite0wl]

Wow ok, thanks a lot.

I need to find one of these locks to try it out.

There are plenty of places like Ebay and so on where you can probably find some dimple locks (just look for references to Mul-T-Lock, Keso, and Kaba) but I know that a company called Angal now sells copies of older Mul-T-Lock designs in the US if you don't mind buying retail.