meshed pins? has this been done? what's it called?

[unjust]

so it occurred to me yesterday while fiddling with some bits of wood on my desk that a pin stack could be interlocked as a dovetail or t joint preventing location of a shear line by feel as until the pins are rotated into allignment they wouldn't pass the shear line. of course this would necessitate a grove cut into the barrel of the lock to accomodate the key pins.

due to the mfg tolerances needed to do this well i assume that this would be a high security item, and the obviousness of it that it's been done.

has it? what's the term? does it work?

[zeke79]

Yes it has been done by corbin emhart.

[mfschantz]

A lock made by Emhart has interlocking pins. It even has grooves on the cylinder so that it works properly. Check it out on google because I'm sure this is high security.

[unjust]

cool thanks. i sort of guessed they'd be items to not discuss on the open forum, and wasnt' after info about them, just the term for it. i'm still baffled by the spool pins in my americans so it's a while before i expect to be practically concerned with it. just wanted to know what the appropriate term was and that i wasn't insane (at least in this one small way) and that it was a feasible idea.

[Squelchtone]

cool thanks. i sort of guessed they'd be items to not discuss on the open forum, and wasnt' after info about them, just the term for it. i'm still baffled by the spool pins in my americans so it's a while before i expect to be practically concerned with it. just wanted to know what the appropriate term was and that i wasn't insane (at least in this one small way) and that it was a feasible idea.

as Zeke said, Corbin Emhart.

enjoy the diagram, it's available online, but I don't recall where








Squelchtone

[Eyes_Only]

Why did they stop making the Emhart locks? Looks to me that these locks would offer a very high level of pick resistance.

[mercurial]

Why did they stop making the Emhart locks? Looks to me that these locks would offer a very high level of pick resistance.

Emhart got sued by Medeco, for patent infringement, on the grounds that the Emhart uses rotating pins, and Medeco believed they owned this concept.

I believe the Emhart is significantly different to the medeco, but unfortunately Medeco won the lawsuit.

A great shame, such a beautiful lock, and beatifully made from what I have heard.

I just searched here onsite, it seems there is no clear answer as to whether this lawsuit did deal a deathblow to the Emhart, but there are certainly people who have told me that was the case.

Here is one discussion about this, there is a link inside the thread to more discussion on the matter.

http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?t=11161&view=previous

...Mark