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Information about locks themselves. Questions, tips and lock diagram information should be posted here.
 by Ffojt » 31 Mar 2011 14:21
Hi, At school today, I got a funny challenge. Some teacher had broken off a key inside one of the drawers on his desk. He had broken open that drawer, and tossed away the key, but he still had another drawer without the key, and I got to try and open it. I didn't believe I would be able to open it, but I did  :) Anyway, the lock was really strange. It had a really wide keyhole, pins on the bottom, and only three. The weird thing was the pins. They looked like wafers, but they worked like pins, with springs and stuff. What system is this? Ffojt
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Ffojt
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by mh » 31 Mar 2011 14:33
wafer lock also use springs,
maybe you could explain more details?
"The techs discovered that German locks were particularly difficult" - Robert Wallace, H. Keith Melton w. Henry R. Schlesinger, Spycraft: The secret history of the CIA's spytechs from communism to Al-Qaeda (New York: Dutton, 2008), p. 210
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mh
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by Ffojt » 31 Mar 2011 14:43
There isn't really that much more I can tell. I applied tension and pushed the wafers/pins down one by one, from the front, and they locked in place in order, front to back. When only pushed slightly down, they popped back up, making me believe there are some springs involved. The only wafer lock I've heard of is the padlock version, with stationary wafers, and a key with notches letting it rotate without being stopped by the wafers. The kind you can open with a skeleton key.
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by chriswingate » 31 Mar 2011 14:48
Ffojt wrote:There isn't really that much more I can tell. I applied tension and pushed the wafers/pins down one by one, from the front, and they locked in place in order, front to back. When only pushed slightly down, they popped back up, making me believe there are some springs involved. The only wafer lock I've heard of is the padlock version, with stationary wafers, and a key with notches letting it rotate without being stopped by the wafers. The kind you can open with a skeleton key.
Pretty sure the padlock you are talking about is a warded lock. http://www.northerntool.com/images/product/images/178546_lg.jpgIs that what you are talking about? mh is right, wafer locks use springs, they act the same way as pins do with the cuts on the key. Most drawer and cabinet locks use little wafer cam locks.
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by mh » 31 Mar 2011 14:52
That padlock would be called a "warded lock", not a wafer lock. For an explanation on wafer locks, see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafer_tumbler_lockCheers mh "The techs discovered that German locks were particularly difficult" - Robert Wallace, H. Keith Melton w. Henry R. Schlesinger, Spycraft: The secret history of the CIA's spytechs from communism to Al-Qaeda (New York: Dutton, 2008), p. 210
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mh
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by Ffojt » 4 Apr 2011 4:23
It was a fixed lock, not a padlock, but it seems right. The keys in the picture in the link looks like i imagined the insde of the lock. Thanks!
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