soft key?

[Ganphra]

Hi everyone, i remember seeing a topic on "soft keys" where you insert a key with aluminum foil or something on it and jiigle it round......anyways i did searching but could not find it, could someone give me some info or a site on them?

[fizzmahon]

i saw that in one of the lock picking movies. The lock that they used the soft key on was a dimple lock.

[Tygart]

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[Shrub]

The technique is called foil impressioning,

Its normally used on dimple locks but can and is used on a lot of lock types with great success,

The key is useually thinned down to allow for the thickness of foil then a nemuber of differant types of foil are used personally im playing with the sticky backed stuff that you get for sealing heating ducts up,

The key normally needs to be more or less a 999 for that lock and you sometimes have to put a medium under the foil to slow the indentation process down or else you false set,

It takes practice and gentle, fluid but precise movements to achieve,

[fizzmahon]

how long does it usually take for the foil to get the impressions?

[Shrub]

It varies on the foil, the lock and the bitting,

As an example lets say were looking at a standard dimple lock that impressions with this technique well,

Say weve tried many types of differant locally availble foils and found one that seems to work quite well,

You would expect to open the lock within 1-2 minutes maximum, easier bitings take only a couple of tries and its open,

On pin tumbler locks you can double that time from my experiance and its a lot more tempremental with the foil often dragged around by the keyway wards,

But the fun part is finding the material to do it and then finding one that works better or faster, trying differant things underneath the foil etc are all things to play with,


There was a thread not so long ago with a video of a pin tumbler impressioning, i think it was from one of our french members but i cant remember, i will try and find you the link,

[Shrub]

Sorry the link above was of course the thread i was meaning,