Hey everyone, I'm Ryan the inventor of the Bowley lock. Thanks for all the interest so far. I can certainly tell that if someone is going to defeat this lock it will probably come from experts like yourselves. I want to say that i made this lock for the affordable residential market. I realize there are fantastic locks available if you want to spend the money. I just didn't like the fact that people on a budget have no security with the locks they have to buy and this lock is for those people.
The denial of use is not a problem. The key and slot are 0.080" thick and the pins are 0.115". The Rotating idler is chamfered and the pointed bottom of the bottom pins rest on this chamfer (both are 45º). This chamfer is able to lift the pins back up and you can return the idler to the bottom. It would be a funny prank but does not brick or ruin the lock in any way. And i have tested this with a standard pick.
I agree that bumping is possible, but it will not be simple. I have heard some ideas that have merit for sure. However during the development of the lock, two ideas fell out that by chance also apply to any standard pin tumbler lock and i would love to know if any one has seen them done in practice. We included them in the international patent we filed and i think there may be interest from the schlages and master lock type companies and i will explain these idea as follows. Also both of these will be implemented in the locks that are sold going forwards. One already is, the second was two late for my last run of prototypes. Ill say this too when you only make ten at a time these locks aren't cheap.
Idea 1:
The long pin, or normally open pin:
All the Bowley Locks to date have one pin that actually needs to be all the way down in order to open the lock. Meaning the key actually doesn't touch it. It sits on the idler. This pin can be in any of the 5 positions making a minimum of 5 bump keys required to open a random lock. This pin makes the lock quite touchy with regards to the idler. If the idler is rotated with respect to the lock cylinder the smallest amount the long pin locks the lock. So the idea above of grinding an angle on the flag will lock the lock, as it will allow the idler to rotate.Trust me this has happened to me when i am cutting the chamfer on the flag and went to far. Even if the key is loose 0.005" the angle caused by the tilting of the key can lock the lock so all the tolerances are very controlled. This long pin would stop a normal 5 bump key from working. A bump key would need no bump at that location requiring 5 keys. you could pin it with two long pins increasing that to 20 but i probably will just stay with the one in these first batches. I don"t see why this could not be done on a standard lock as well.
This deep bitting on the key basically makes turning an already cut key into a bump key impossible. You would have to make one from a uncut key and shift the bitting as i think some one mentioned above. We intend on only selling uncut keys to lock smiths so the amount of uncut keys will be limited to the public. And making one yourself requires a laser cutter/wire edm/water jet and a milling machine and special jig. If your curious we laser cut the blanks,machine the keys and we intend on wire edm the bitting for the commercial keys for a great smooth finish. The keys can be cut on a duplicator if a small jig is used to hold the fork tight.
Idea 2:
We call it controlled depth drilling:
The bottom pins in a standard lock when a key is not in the lock all rest at the same depth. The idea here was to differ the depths of these holes so that some pins come to rest above the others essentially lifting them above the bump. So for example, the back pin may sit .045" higher than the rest. The fourth may sit .060". As long as the pin was not forced above the sheer line you would not even have to change the key or the pins. Just the depth of the holes.
Well in our lock it is actually controlled by the width of the chamfer on the idler. The wider the chamfer the deeper the pins can drop and vise versa. We are going to have batches of locks in which certain pins sit higher than others. As long as the key bitting is higher than there lowest allowable fall depth the lock will function as normal but now the permutations of the heights of the bumps on a bump key become very numerous which now brings the number up in to the hundreds. Now there may be visible cues from the out side that may allow a locksmith to deduce the bump key needed but it certainly will stop the criminal with a single bump key.
Both of these ideas were meant for the Bowley lock but the more i thought about them the more i convinced my self they would work in any pin tumbler lock. I would really like to see the crappy hardware store locks implementing this as it may greatly reduce the bump-ability of standard locks.
There are nine pin depths.
Anyways. Thanks alot for listening to my rant. Ill try to come on regularly to answer questions.
Regards,
Ryan Bowley
