the mysterious cuts

[atrix]

hi all
this is the Chinese lock
it is easy to pick, but I cannot understand what are these cuts for?



sorry my english

[n2oah]

He means "what are these cuts for", in case you didn't know.

[mh]

Weird...

Wild guess:
1) it's some sort of coding, as in: a plug with these cuts goes into this type of housing
2) they wanted to recycle some material

[cracksman]

They don't seem to have any mechanical use in the locking mechanism, that is a hell of a dent in one of those top pins though

[Gordon Airporte]

High-performance hot rod lock, shaved down to reduce friction?

[raimundo]

Cuts are offset so the driver pins do not foul into them unless a spool could manage it. perhaps they are an artifact of the manufacturing process, such as a jig to hold the plug for gang drilling.

[ThE_MasteR]

I think it's acting like a retaining pin, except it's on the outside of the cylinder. When you put the key in the assembled lock, can you take of the cylinder without removing anything ? If so I think those cuts are just retainers. But why go thru so much work ? me don't know lol.

[p1ckf1sh]

1) it's some sort of coding, as in: a plug with these cuts goes into this type of housing

There should be some kind of marking/coding on the housing then as well, but I can't see any. Maybe these cuts encode the warding profile in some ingenious way, making it easy to check if two plugs are identically warde without looking too hard. Number of cuts, depth of cuts and spacing of cuts could make for easy visual discrimination, kinda like a barcode.

Just guessing though.

[Squelchtone]

2) they wanted to recycle some material

I think mh is right. Going into my engineering classes I thought all we would talk about is science, but instead most of what we talked about was making products for the least amount of money.

Less material = less money to produce, so I also say the slots were milled out to recycle the material into other new locks.. (cutting those grooves is a process called slotting in the machine tool industry.) Notice they didnt go too close to the face as to retain some strength, and the working end also has more material than the middle. It's interesting how they offset the slots from the pin holes, and how one slot is not as deep as its brothers.

Squelchtone
________________________________________________
The simplest answer is usually the correct answer.

[atrix]

hi all
thanks for the answers
I think that these сuts they make for the savings of the material
but it is heavy to understand Chinese
this lock good to pick with racking picks in paar sec. but pin by pin it does not work

Such form pins complicates opening by that that all pins different also is used with greater admissions and consequently while lower one pin two lift back

[p1ckf1sh]

I think mh is right. Going into my engineering classes I thought all we would talk about is science, but instead most of what we talked about was making products for the least amount of money.

Less material = less money to produce, so I also say the slots were milled out to recycle the material into other new locks..

Hmmm. Does it make sense economically? I mean the plug aint that big, so the material saving aint that big. Sure you can take the shavings from maybe 8-10 plugs to make a new one, but the plug is first made completely, then milled. That adds another machine to be used, another step in the production cycle, etc.

But maybe you are right...

The chinese are weird people. But lovely as long as they don't roll over demonstrating students in battle tanks...

No offense, just thinking out aloud

[SFGOON]

Did anyone else notice that the top of that plug has been filed down a touch?

Honestly, who knows why they Chinese do anything. My bet is some sort of Feng-Shue, but it should be noted that I'm grossly ignint.

[mh]

Did anyone else notice that the top of that plug has been filed down a touch?

Sure, I guess that's part of the deburring process after drilling the holes.

Assuming that this is all done manually, as I would expect.

[n2oah]

Did anyone else notice that the top of that plug has been filed down a touch?

Sure, I guess that's part of the deburring process after drilling the holes.

Assuming that this is all done manually, as I would expect.

Yes, I've seen locks with the same filing marks. I've seen locks with parts of the plug shaved off. There was a National brand padlock I found that had the right side shaved off (this was possible because it was a one-way cylinder)

[conker]

wow, that is a mystery. There are several good ideas on this though, I think the one that it uses less materials is good though. It makes sense, since that is the only real reason why they would do something like that.