What did you pick today?

[adi_picker]

Holy shit Gene! That keyway!!

Nice picking!

adi_picker

[tpark]

Picked best WA or WC i forget which (got both) to control, fab 200rs, ruko 500 and 600 cams.

Impressive - those PKS keyways can be a pain to work on! Good job.

--Ted.

[tpark]

More Medecos.



I have some spare BiAxial pins, so I threaded the bottom cylinder and have been using it as a practice lock, with different bittings each time I pick it. Top lock is one of my KA Medecos.

adi_picker

Out of curiosity, do your locks have countermilled cores? I have one here that has countermilling and ARX type pins in it, and ASSA style drivers in some chambers.



No false gates in the side, but maybe they're trying to make these locks harder to decode at the expense of making the sidebar easier to pick. This style of driver and the countermilling makes it a bit harder to pick the pins though.

[OrMeanGene]

Picked best WA or WC i forget which (got both) to control, fab 200rs, ruko 500 and 600 cams.

Impressive - those PKS keyways can be a pain to work on! Good job.

--Ted.

Thanks. I got them all bited really good i think. Went all 7pins with aggressive bitings.

[adi_picker]

Gday tpark,

No countermilling here in the KIKs I have mate, nor have I seen it in any Medecos I have come across. Also, no ASSA style drivers, only the usual mushrooms. Perhaps you are correct in your thinking that they are trying to make the lock more difficult to pick. Is it a recent / new core?

adi_picker

[tpark]

Gday tpark,

No countermilling here in the KIKs I have mate, nor have I seen it in any Medecos I have come across. Also, no ASSA style drivers, only the usual mushrooms. Perhaps you are correct in your thinking that they are trying to make the lock more difficult to pick. Is it a recent / new core?

adi_picker

Yes, I got it only a week ago. I was trying to set the pins, and the lock was being a real pain - I kept dropping pins, and they were extremely hard to set properly, like the countermilled Ruko I have. I gutted it after and lo and behold, countermilling, ARX pins, and Assa style pins. I think they used the ARX pins to thwart the sidebar setting attack (it's still possible, but you can't remove the flat key when the sidebar is engaged) and the Assa style pins to make it harder to pick.

I'm very glad to see them doing this - my opinion is that they're making a real effort to improve their locks. The only suggestion I have as an incremental improvement is to mill false gates on the pins, but I'm sure that would increase the cost significantly. The other improvement would be to slope the sides of the thing that interacts with the sidebar so that it's not possible for it to trap the sidebar in the core. If they did these things, it would reduce bypass attacks. As it stands, the padlock I bought is pretty good, and with the pewag chain I bought, no one is gonna steal my lawn chairs.

[GWiens2001]

Gday tpark,

No countermilling here in the KIKs I have mate, nor have I seen it in any Medecos I have come across. Also, no ASSA style drivers, only the usual mushrooms. Perhaps you are correct in your thinking that they are trying to make the lock more difficult to pick. Is it a recent / new core?

adi_picker

Yes, I got it only a week ago. I was trying to set the pins, and the lock was being a real pain - I kept dropping pins, and they were extremely hard to set properly, like the countermilled Ruko I have. I gutted it after and lo and behold, countermilling, ARX pins, and Assa style pins. I think they used the ARX pins to thwart the sidebar setting attack (it's still possible, but you can't remove the flat key when the sidebar is engaged) and the Assa style pins to make it harder to pick.

I'm very glad to see them doing this - my opinion is that they're making a real effort to improve their locks. The only suggestion I have as an incremental improvement is to mill false gates on the pins, but I'm sure that would increase the cost significantly. The other improvement would be to slope the sides of the thing that interacts with the sidebar so that it's not possible for it to trap the sidebar in the core. If they did these things, it would reduce bypass attacks. As it stands, the padlock I bought is pretty good, and with the pewag chain I bought, no one is gonna steal my lawn chairs.

Have seen false gates on a few Medeco pins.

Gordon

[tpark]

Have seen false gates on a few Medeco pins.

Gordon

So have I, I find that the false gates make things very difficult to set - if it's in a false gate, you have to back off quite a bit in order to rotate that pin. If I were machining the pins, I would start with pins that all had false gates cut into them, then deepen the groove ARX style for the true gate, saving wear on that tool, and hopefully saving machining time per pin. The latest change definitely makes this kind of lock harder to open, but all that extra work has to add to the production cost for this item. With the countermilled holes in the plug, tight tolerances, and ASSA style pins, production cost has to be high. I got this one open, but it took a while -pin 1 had to be picked last.

[OrMeanGene]

Have seen false gates on a few Medeco pins.

Gordon

So have I, I find that the false gates make things very difficult to set - if it's in a false gate, you have to back off quite a bit in order to rotate that pin. If I were machining the pins, I would start with pins that all had false gates cut into them, then deepen the groove ARX style for the true gate, saving wear on that tool, and hopefully saving machining time per pin. The latest change definitely makes this kind of lock harder to open, but all that extra work has to add to the production cost for this item. With the countermilled holes in the plug, tight tolerances, and ASSA style pins, production cost has to be high. I got this one open, but it took a while -pin 1 had to be picked last.

Great work man. I hate when pin1 is the hassle. Sucks screwing around when using ToK

[OrMeanGene]

Fun picking around with new Assa 2 padlocks i just picked up. The medeco in the abus 83 i could get open.




Last night i was messing around with these dimple padlocks. Included pic in this post. Didnt get rhe magnum open. Its rough pick with the shutter.

[adi_picker]

Picked another Lockwood Twin today, first time I have had one around since I traded the original



These are functionally the same as the ASSA Twin Combi 1800, so 6 top pins, standard drivers and 3 finger pins, with only 1 or 2 false gates on each. Not nearly as hard as a Twin 6000, which I still struggle with! Also modified one of the Twin Blanks I got off eBay to fit it with the mill. The American Twin blanks are quite different from the LW ones, as you can see the LW ones, as you can see it has the undercut, and some warding on either side of the blade.

adi_picker

[GWiens2001]

Picked another Lockwood Twin today, first time I have had one around since I traded the original



These are functionally the same as the ASSA Twin Combi 1800, so 6 top pins, standard drivers and 3 finger pins, with only 1 or 2 false gates on each. Not nearly as hard as a Twin 6000, which I still struggle with! Also modified one of the Twin Blanks I got off eBay to fit it with the mill. The American Twin blanks are quite different from the LW ones, as you can see the LW ones, as you can see it has the undercut, and some warding on either side of the blade.

adi_picker

ASSA Twin Combi has five finger pins. That was the thing that surprised me with the Lockwood Twin - having only three finger pins.



Here is the full compliment of pins from an ASSA Twin Combi. Note the old-school Christmas tree spool driver pins.



Gordon

[adi_picker]

EVVA DPS 5 Pin



Used the super super deep hook, and followed the pin grooves to bypass the warding on this one.

Thanks for the info Gordon, the world of Twins is much much deeper than I had ever expected.

adi_picker

[greengrowlocks]

I finally opened a smart key this morning. I've had for awhile and just thought I'd give it another go today with heavy tension and got it open in about 30 seconds.

[Eazy123]

I finally opened a smart key this morning. I've had for awhile and just thought I'd give it another go today with heavy tension and got it open in about 30 seconds.

Nice - I'm working on one myself.


Does anyone know if there's a difference between the Kwikset & Weiser Smartkey locks?