MBAUSA "Super" picks, personal review.

[Anavaree]

I wanted to show these to all of you. I found them while I was looking for some Falle wrenches.
As it happens, MBA appears to be the only source for Falle-safe tools in the US. While I was shopping I found these picks.



I have always been hooked on tools of all kinds. I have had plenty of luck with my normal picks, but when I saw these I had to have them. They look very similar to the HPC computer generated picks.
While I was there I ran into Mark and we got talking about the source of these picks.

I think that most of us know the story about the HPC computer generated picks. It is claimed, and this is the story I have been told, that those picks were actually copies of a set of picks designed by the Israeli, and that a security specialist made a photocopy of the original waveforms but in the process enlarged the image for greater detail. This is why the HPC picks are just a little too large. Anybody with differing or confirming info please, jump in.
Anyways, these picks are made by a French company called, obviously, Initial, and according to Mark are the original waveforms created by the Israeli.

When I got these picks they came in an expandable tool tube the likes of which you get with mill ends and certain drill bits. They come with a nice double ended tension wrench which would not scan well on my scanner but we all know what a tension wrench looks like.

When first opened they appear a little dull and the edges are quite sharp. The waveforms are very exact and well defined. My first use resulted in immediate success. I had a Schlage and Kwikset lock lying around and the Kwikset opened immediately. I mean immediately. The second pick I inserted opened the lock as though it were the key. I was able to repeat this with the same lock several times with different waves. The Schlage lock was a little more difficult but after a little manipulation was able to be opened shortly.

The only problem in the whole ordeal was the sharp edges of the picks made insertion and gentle manipulation a little difficult. I believed that the edges were catching on the softer brass of the keyway and pins. I sat down with a cotton rag and a tube of Flitz and after about an hour of hand polishing had polished the picks to a beautiful shine and very gently smoothed the edges. From this point on, insertion and manipulation was quite easy and I found no change in the performance of the picks.

My scan does not do them justice. They are very smooth, polished, and quite thin. If I am plan on using them for any period of time I usually have a couple of Band-Aids on to cushion the impact on my fingers.
I bought them more for a curiosity, though they do work, and they probably won’t make it into my field kit. Still, if you have $64 lying around they are cheaper, have more patterns and I believe work better than the HPC computer picks. Worth picking up.

Any questions, please feel free to ask.
~Jesse

[lock-ed]

Jesse,
thx for your good info and picture!
Could you please measure the thickness of the picks?

I have the chinese version of these. I made the same observation, that the tools were not "finished" properly . On some locks, the picks will open them straight away. However, on others it will not work.
My main reason for buying these, was to try them on ABUS padlocks. So far, the result is nothing.

If you should have some ABUS lying around, could I ask you to try your picks on those, and share the result?

I also met Mark, at ELF Lillehammer two weeks ago. Seems a very decent and knowledgeable guy.

Thanks again,
Ed

[Anavaree]

Lock-ed,
Yeah mark was really nice and was more than happy to chat. I think we would have stood there all day if I hadnt realized i was late for an engagement and he hadnt realized that he had a business to run.
I measured those picks, they are .024"/.58mm thick. Made of some alloy of high carbon steel. When I got them a couple had very slight corrosion on them, which polished off easily with the flitz. It didnt look like rust, more like intergranular corrosion. They are very springy but they will deform if used heavy handedly.
Any other questions please feel free to ask.
~Jesse

[Anavaree]

Forgot, I have some ABUS padlocks and I will try them when i have a chance. I have a 14month old and he determines my schedule. Ill let you know as soon as I give it a shot.
~Jes

[raimundo]

so you take the one marked #1 and put it in and jiggle it until lock opens or you get tired of that pick
then you go to #2 and do it again, use both edges of the pick,

they all have numbers on them so you don't try the same one twice before going through all 31 others if you are organized.

supposedly designed on a computer and therefore called computer picks, the story dosent track, since these have been around
since before computers were little things in everyones house. these are not better than random squiggles
Plus I could design 32 squiggly lines representing the king queen jack all the royal b*tards in a minute with a sharpy marker.

wiggle and jiggle and keep trying until you use all 32 picks on all 64 edges, Some locks are bound to open, in fact most of the cheap
ones will open to probably half of those squiggly picks.
somebody contact me if a real high security lock ever opens to anyone of these.

Its like the pick version of tryout keys.

[Anavaree]

Lock-ed,
I worked on 3 different Abus 72/40 padlocks and had no luck opening then with these picks. Went thru the whole series a couple of times.
I am wondering if the padlocks with smaller key-ways/tighter spacing may not be as susceptible to these picks.
Also tried an American 5260 with no luck.

Rai,
I am not sure if the story about the computer is right, who knows where they really came from, right? Perhaps the computer story was
just created to give them either a more fantabulous origin or perhaps ENIAC was built for just this purpose...
You may also be correct about them just being random squiggles but I swear I have amazing luck with the 04/20 pick combo.
I haven't been trying every lock i own or anything but i had 2 schlages, 2 kwiksets and an arrow cylinder lying around my computer and the 04/20
was very successful in opening these 5 locks. More so than the other wave-forms.
Maybe there is some truth to the abilities of these picks or maybe i was just lucky.
And I think we all will agree that Medeco won't be bowing down to these things anytime soon.

they all have numbers on them so you don't try the same one twice before going through all 31 others if you are organized.

I made this for just that purpose. I wasn't going to show anybody because i am a little embarrassed about the precision with which it was made, but hey, i am not a seamstress.



I don't know if you've tried, but keeping elastic straight seems to be a pain in the, ah, donkey.

Anyways, I'll be keeping these things around. I like them well enough to play with.

~Jesse

[pickmonger]

I notice that the German supplier Multipick also carries what appears to be the same or very close set of these picks

http://www.multipick-service.com/htdocs/en/werkzeug/picksets/ersatzlkpcks/

There seems to be a lot of copying of designs and these picks are probably available from several other sources.

[pickmonger]

FYI these picks are the last items on the above mentioned webpage.

The main source of information about these picks sold by Initial came from a story in ALOA Keynotes Magazine.

As for being computer generated there seems to be some confusion about what was meant among some "newbies"

These picks predate the personal computers of today and the design software. They were not done in a cad like software package.

It is assumed that large sequences of biting patterns were analysed to come up with some of the most likely patterns
Anyone who has read the book on the king and queen pick styles in "Lock Pick Design" will understand some of the basics.

Interstingly enough there are several pictures of these picks on the net and there seems to be a problem with rust on many sets.

[scriptguru]

MBAUSA sells picks only to certified locksmith. So oldschool.

[lock-ed]

Jesse,
thank you very much for testing and posting the result
I think I*ll just keep on practicing my SPP
So long,
Ed

[DonR]

In the late 1970s, Soldier of Fortune Magazine had the Israeli picks in the back of some issues, pre - HPC.

I had the set of HPC Computer Generated "Wave" Picks back 17 years ago and traded them to a friend I worked with, we both worked for the same alarm company and I let the picking bug bite him.

They work but I can see where they would be much more effective if they were a tad smaller, speaking only of the HPC type as I don't have any of the originals or the MBA type either.

[scriptguru]

Just a small addition for DIY guys:
to print the above picture in real size, the resolution (DPI, dots per inch) should be set to 150.

Using Adobe Photoshop you can do it like this:
1. Open image.
2. Edit -> Image size
3. Uncheck "Resample image", set resolution to 150dpi, press OK.
4. Print the image.

[compromizer]

I recently purchased a set of these and right off the bat found them to be really uncomfortable to work with because of how sharp they are. However I recently found this stuff called Plasti Dip that was $10 at my local harbor freight for a 14.5 oz can. I used this to rubber coat the handles of many of the picks that I commonly use and then I figured out how to coat the MBA Super picks without covering the pick ends of it. All you have to do is get some scotch tape and fold it over one of the pick ends and then dip it and let it take 30mins to dry. Once it is dry, get a razor blade and cut around the tape where the handle meets and pull the tape off the blade. Also upon the reccomendation of this post im ordering some flitz on amazon to help protect the pick ends from rusting. Hope you guys find this helpful! (I tried attaching photos but for some reason the attachment quota has been reached?!?)

[Squelchtone]

! (I tried attaching photos but for some reason the attachment quota has been reached?!?)

That reason is because the forum has been in operation since 2003, so the server is full of images, and these days we just host them somewhere else and paste links here. http://tinypic.com is a good place to throw pics up and use their [IMG]picture.jpg tags to paste here.

Squelchtone