Older combination lock

[0rientedSO]

I'm new to the hobby. My first project was attempting to pick an older Ace combination lock. I pulled tension on the shackle and turned the dial to see where it caught; it caught on:

1
4.5
8
11
14.5
18
24.5
31
38

I tried singling out the numbers, but they didn't seem to have anything in common. After trying multiple methods I caved and dismantled the lock to figure out how it worked. The actual numbers turned out to be 26, 11 and 32.

The design of the lock itself left little room for anything to catch. It was three rings with a "u" shaped depression in each one. When the three depressions lined up, a finger-like extension was able to pass through it and raise the shackle.






So my question is: how would one go about cracking this kind of lock without dismantling it?

[Squelchtone]

Since these are used on school lockers and at gyms, we prefer not to teach folks how to do it since we don't want to accidentally teach a bad guy how to crack them. I'm sure you can find some how to videos on youtube that would do a better job than reading pages of written instructions from folks here.

The only thing I'll share with you since its all over the internet anyway is this diagram you can try to follow, it's made for Master Lock so it may not work with your Ace padlock:
http://i.imgur.com/CABpL.png

here's a similar question from just a day or two ago: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=63011&p=466682#p466682

Good luck,
Squelchtone