by RenderMan » 29 Aug 2006 13:53
The whole point of this thread was mental exercise and not meant as a viable and marketable idea for lock manufacturers. There needs to be more of this kind of discussion on how to make things better since we spend alot of time griping about how bad they are. This was an attempt to do just that based on my experience in the L0st-box contest.
That said, there's some misconceptions floating around I should clear up.
Most cheap lock plugs and chambers are made of brass or pot metal. Most pins are made of brass too. Brass is a non-ferrous metal meaning it is not affected or attracted by magnetic fields. The magnets were never meant to interact with the pins, just to screw with ferrous pick tools. A key would not really be affected since the wards in the keyway would keep the key in line with where it needed to be to operate.
The idea was to put a small but powerful magnet next to the cylinder to make it difficult to apply constant pressure to the pin to set it. It may be possible to retrofit some deadbolts with this quite easily as many deadbolts and rim cylinders have a cavity beside the pin chambers that could have a magnet glued there.
Now that's all layed out, I think that as a challenge and test of control of tools, this could also be a very valuable training tool. If you can maintain control, even with a magnet pulling on your tool, then you definatly have some control of how high your setting pins, thus making you a better picker. Try it and see!
"We all enter this world in the same way: naked, screaming,and soaked in blood.
But if you live your life right, that kind of thing doesn't have to stop there."
-- Dana Gould
