Picking an LFIC lock to control

[bjornnrojb]

So here is a quandary for the smarties out there:
If you have an LFIC lock of the type that has a small pin in the back of the keyhole that must be pushed up to rotate the control knob in. This can only be done if the pin lines up with the top hole. If you pick the first six pins and rotate the plug, you can't push this rear pin up and rotate the control knob in. So how do you pick this lock?
I am thinking about making a bumpkey out of a control key first. Bumpkeys seem inelegant though.
The other option I see is having some sort of wire going back through the bottom of the keyway to push the rear control knob pin up, or cutting away most of the material of a control key to leave a lot of room to pick the lock while still having the end of the control key holding up the control knob's pin. Thoughts? Hoping I don't have to charge customers who lost their control key for new cylinders as a result of the expected breakthrough of picking these locks to control.

[bjornnrojb]

Oops can somebody move this topic to the questions subforum?

[Raymond]

Yes to many of those ideas. Picking is difficult but the core can be picked and then moved JUST nearly back to lock position. The retainer pin can be pushed up before turning the plug again. You can definitely cut down a control blank and use it as a turning tool. If you have any operating key just duplicate it onto a control blank and remove the cylinder. Then take the cylinder apart to make a control with the master key cuts. You can also cut off a very small part of a blank and push it in to the control pin location before picking but this is a pain in the neck if it does not stay in the right place.
Also, is the core in a mortise cylinder on which the back can be removed? This gives access to the retainer pin. If in a lever handle the lever can be taken off from the back.

[phrygianradar]

I did this by making a little insert to slide into the keyway out of very, very thin metal. Like Raymond said (all his ideas on this are good solutions), it can be a little tough to get it to work well, but it does work. The piece I made looked like a long "L" shape so that it would go past the sixth pin and hold up the control pin. I would hold up all the pins with the back of my half diamond and slide it in. Then just pick as normal and shizzam, out it comes!

Good luck!

[bjornnrojb]

Well I got it working really well by using a control blank and making a depth key out of it. Didn't work at first so I shaved the shoulder back a hair and it worked first try. Unfortunately, pulling back too fast pulls the key out and the retaining pin re-engages, but I got the hang of it. Now time to try this with a Titan key.

[fgarci03]

Sorry to bring up an old thread!

Thanks to Phrygianradar, I got my first LFIC lock (yeah, we don't have these in Portugal, that I know of). I picked it and got it to control multiple times without any other hardware.

Basically I did what Raymond said:
Picked the lock normally. After that, retuned the plug to almost locked position (as far as I could) and inserted a pick to lift the retainer pin as high as I could. Then rotated the plug again (Clockwise). If everything is well, you should have it to control and are able remove the core:


The retainer pin looks like this:


It may be a PITA to get it at first...
I noticed some problems... The plug rotates about 1/16 of a turn when picked to control. Sometimes when trying to get to control I could feel it turn 1/8 of a turn and stop. Felt like control but the core didn't come out. I still haven't discovered what it was, bit it's not control.

After a while I nailed it and managed to remove the core multiple times anyway... But its weird!

Basically this is a way to pick it to control without any other aditional tools. After doing it a couple times it gets easy so I think it's worth it, than to get a tool to pick these. What do you think?