LOB Cylinder with Monster Key

[MacGyver101]

I recently picked up a "TOR1" deadbolt, manufactured by LOB (a Polish lock manufacturer). Normally, a cheap pin-tumbler cylinder wouldn't catch my attention, but I thought this one looked too good to pass up. It's a pretty unremarkable, surface-mount deadbolt... except for the cylinder.

It's a pretty basic pin-tumbler cylinder, built on a Euro profile. It looks vaguely like a single-sided Yale cylinder, with a custom tailpiece:





Where it starts to get interesting is that the key's a little longer than normal...



...and, by "a little longer", I mean very long...



...really, really long...



It's a 12-pin (!?!) cylinder. I'll have to tear the cylinder down and take some more photos later this weekend. For now, here's the key beside a standard Schlage (SC1) blank and a Master padlock key (M1) as a size comparison:



I'm not expecting the individual pins to be much of a challenge, but it's going to need a custom pick just to be able to reach to the back of the lock. My standard Peterson picks "only" reach the first eight pins, leaving four that I can't easily manipulate.



Between this lock and the even more unique SEZAM cylinder, I'm resolved to spend some more time checking out Polish lock manufacturers!

[phrygianradar]

Looks like a photoshop spoof! That is really unique, plus it made me laugh, so thank you! Would love to see the pins and all the insides, thanks for a cool post. Where on earth did you get it?!

[Squelchtone]

Yay for my inventive country men!

We're gonna need a very long 12 hump Bogota for that lock =) Please oh please tell me it is full of spools and mushroom pins.

This reminds me of the Mauer keys Barry Wels posted a while ago on his blog: http://blackbag.nl/?p=42

Squelchtone

[kerti]

Amazing!

[MacGyver101]

Where on earth did you get it?!

I found it on eBay; there's a seller who's starting up a local business selling both really unique Polish-sourced locks, and a bunch of better-known high-security locks. (He had a SEZAM cylinder for sale a couple of weeks ago, and various MT5+ and Protec2 cylinders, etc..) He actually seems like a nice guy.

He's a bit grumpy with me at the moment, though: I left him neutral feedback when the package arrived in pieces, with everything having fallen out of it. I was fortunate enough that the local post office found all the pieces and repackaged everything into a bag for me:





He's arguing it's not his fault, because he believes the package ripped open in Canada, rather than in Poland. As the buyer, I don't care whether it got 10% of the way or 90% of the way to me... if the packaging self-destructs before it arrives, because the weight of the locks have torn open the side of the paper envelope, then he needs to use better packaging.

Anyhow, in the end nothing was lost, and I honestly think he just messed up in this particular case... the rest of his feedback seems to be pretty positive.

[phrygianradar]

Nice tip, I will have to check ebay more often and hunt for some cool locks! And about your packaging; it seems strange that someone would skimp on the packaging of something like that. You, as the buyer, are thankful to the post office workers who bagged up all the loose bits, but it really should be the seller who is most thankful. Why would he not use a little box?! Well, glad it got to you and thanks for sharing. It is really an interesting find.

[femurat]

WOW! You'll need a very long hook to pick that!
The way you described it was very funny. I scrolled down slowly and enjoyed the suspense you created

Nice find

[MrWizard]

Whao! That is one long key! It was funny the way you moved it out a little at a time made me laugh also.

Lucky you did get all the parts being the bag ripped that much. Good find it is very unusual to see a 12 pin key.

Richard

[phrygianradar]

Do they actually make key blanks that long? Or did someone custom make the key by soldering (I'm not sure how it could be done, just guessing), or some how attaching multiple keys together?

[phrygianradar]

Perhaps they feed normal keys all natural growth enhancement dietary supliments?! That is some crazy "road apples" man!

[l0ckcr4ck3r]

Thats awesome!! Perhaps its kinda "security through rarity".. not enough picks out there to work on it
Im guessing its more for distribution purposes though... a standard key duplicator could be used with the right blanks, you'd just need to do one half at a time. If the lock to the form of a V-12 engine like the ASSA twins, you need a specific/more expensive duplicator to cut them. Nice find though!

[MacGyver101]

Do they actually make key blanks that long? Or did someone custom make the key by soldering (I'm not sure how it could be done, just guessing), or some how attaching multiple keys together?

It came with six factory-cut keys... so the manufacturer had a supply of the proper-sized blanks, and they're a single piece of metal. I'd be shocked if the blanks were widely available, and (as l0ckcr4ck3r notes) they likely couldn't be duplicated on most standard machines. Amusingly, though, the back of the keys all say (in Polish) "do not copy".

[phrygianradar]

That is funny!

[Evan]

Is that you rare 12-pin Polish deadbolt key in your pocket or are you just happy to see me ?

LOL...

~~ Evan

[MacGyver101]

Not the world's greatest photos, but I ran out of time tonight for anything more than some quick pictures on my phone...

The keyway is similar to a Yale Y1 profile that's been shifted up towards the top of the keyway slightly. (A Y1 blank will fit nicely, if you file the top of the blank down a bit... it would just need to be twice as long.)





From the shoulder to the centre of the last cut, the key measures roughly 2.21"... which is the size of pick you'd need to reach all the way to the back.



These are possibly the roughest-cut bottom pins that I've ever seen in a production lock...



They're slightly rounded on the top, and some are missing significant chunks, which tells me this wouldn't be a very hard pick, with an appropriately-sized set of tools.





Here's a fully-stripped down view of all the components. The five ball bearings are there for anti-drill production.



In this photo you can see some more detail of the bottom pins; from the tool marks and the variation in size, I'd guess that these might even be cut to size by hand at some point in the process?



Feeding a set of pinning tweezers into a 2.25" housing, and trying to keep track of which chambers have a spring and which don't made for a fun reassembly job. I'm curious to know whether capped the chambers off before or after they fill them.



Off to make a half-foot-long Bogota...