The "Bowley Lock": Canada's newest and coolest lock!

[mseifert]

interesting concept .. I would love you get my hand on one too try and bypass it

[mh]

So I finally got mine. Canadian "surface mail" small parcels are slow, and I guess addressing it to Denmark instead of Germany didn't help, but then again most Danish people know that Bavaria is where the Oktoberfest happens once a year, and so it arrived here yesterday

I took some pictures: http://imgur.com/a/8vxCR

This is the lock and one of the keys:


Close-up of key and pin stacks - some serrations and spools for the driver pins, they have different lengths, the springs are different and quite strong. Apart from that, I didn't find "shallow drilling" or another anti-bumping technology.


The key code is "13693", it could be a direct code - in this image from left to right, the cuts would be
3 ~2.1mm
9 ~1.3mm
6 ~1.7mm
3 ~2.1mm
1 ~2.5mm
where the mm figure refers to the remaining thickness below the cut.

I wondered how the key picks up the outer plug once it's fully pushed in - there's a milling in the plug:



So far, it's a nice novelty lock for my collection. The key finish could be a bit nicer, but well, this way each of them is unique...


But then I started to file down one of the keys - I guess you can image why...
Anyway, I filed it down from ~1.7mm to ~1.3mm, and guess what - the key still worked without any problem.


Then I tried the next cut, filed it down from ~2.1mm to ~1.6mm, and that's now where the key starts to stop working. It doesn't work immediately, I have to jiggle it back and forth a lot before it will start to turn.


But I have to say - this lock doesn't seem to require tight tolerances on the key, and also it doesn't seem to offer that many true key differs.
If I get the depth increments right, it looks like "3 increments low" still opens the lock, "4 increments low" is too much in this case.

[Bowley Lock Company]

Mh,
Sorry for marking it denmark and i'm really glad it found its way to you. I think its worth public mention even though you graciously chose not to, to say you are the first person to open a Bowley lock with out the proper Key and your foil impressioning showed great skill and know how. Luckily foiling is a professional technique and isn't a common criminal technique and i think our claim of high security at an affordable price still holds true. I think the consensus on this and other forums was that some form of impressioning may be a viable way to defeat the lock so i'm not too surprised that worked and hope to improve the lock going forward to a point where it will not. I will try to explain where we are at and what we plan on improving going forward.

The tolerances of the lock are very tight meaning when i call out a dimension it has a very small variance of what is allowed. The clearances are also very tight as you can probably feel between the cylinder and housing, key and idler etc. However what is effecting us is a compiling of chamfers. The chamfer on the bottom of the top pin which is the pin that locks the lock when the key is cut to low is 0.005". These are purchased pins and essentially this is all we could purchase for the time being. This 0.005" or .125mm chamfer allows a under cut key of 0.005" to work and in reality the curvature of the lock and the clearance between the cylinder and housing increases this to maybe .010 or .25mm. What we need is a nearly flat top pin to reduce this effect so that the top pin can drop into the cylinder with out being able to slide up the chamfers and out. In other words we need the side of the pin to hit the side of the pin hole not two ramps acting on each other.

The cylinder also has a small chamfer on it around the holes which also adds to this effect and we will reduce this going forward to as low as it can be just so not leave a machining burr. In reality you are correct that there are not currently as many true key codes as there are key codes however if the key is higher in any location the lock wont open as the bottom pin is then what is locking the lock and the area between the shield and the housing id which contains the key and the bottom pin can not be bigger and no amount of chamfers changes that. So in that direction things are working well.

So if you try some one else's key in your lock if there is a single key cut that is higher than on your key that key wont work in your lock but if you tried a key with a code in which all the codes where the same or with in 2 cuts lower it may with some jiggling. We have not had a wrong key open a lock yet. So in theory there are maybe only 5^5 (3125) true codes but there are 50000 codes we can make and all those with a cut above a given key is a true code in a sense that doesnt work. so depending on your code there could be tens of thousands that wont open it and maybe 100 that will currently. As we proceed and flatten the pins and reduce the chamfers hopefully we can bring the true key codes to 50000 as we improve these issues.

Manufacturing this lock has been a major learning experience and completing the kickstarter order was a victory of sorts. We hope to start producing the locks ourselves but for financial reasons we have partnered with a machine shop for the time being. The key finish which you mentioned is a machined finish. The keys were designed to me made out of material with a ground finish but our shop went and procured 1/4" material so we had to work with it. Ultimately we really liked the machined finish and surveyed a lot of people and they did to. We sandblasted a bunch as a second choice but the consensus was the machined finish was the coolest. We are now out of that material and are moving back to the on size material so the kickstarter keys will be a limited edition of sorts. The milling of that extra material took the keys from taking 10 minutes /4 keys each to 40 minutes on the mill and the machine shop lost a fortune making them that way. They made similar costly mistakes on the housing and pushed through and are now revising our manufacturing approach to make the parts faster and more feasibly. We are taking a few week break to address these issues and i will be in the shop over christmas with them fine tuning these items which include the chamfers

Again I hope people appreciate we are still tweaking things in the hopes of having a viable product and from a cost perspective a viable company. If either doesnt happen this lock will not be successful. Before kickstarter we had only made 20 locks and sold 0 and now we have made and sold almost 1000 which from a product point of view is still nothing but from our point of view was a big step. We hope our lock offers customers a lock that has great tamper resistance for a reasonable price. I guess we will see what happens.

Mh once we have locks with improved internal chamfers i will send one to you for free to test.

Ryan Bowley

[femurat]

Ryan, I like your attitude and enjoyed reading your honest reply. That's a good philosophy for a manufacturer. I wish you all the best with your adventure.

Cheers

[Divinorum]

I am considering adding one of these to my collection. It was mentioned earlier in the thread that

Interestingly enough - they offer a "Lock pickers challenge kit" that includes 1 cylinder and 1 key with no deadbolt hardware for only $90 USD.

However I can not seem to find this. mh thanks for the take down pics. Really cool.

[mh]

I am considering adding one of these to my collection. It was mentioned earlier in the thread that

Interestingly enough - they offer a "Lock pickers challenge kit" that includes 1 cylinder and 1 key with no deadbolt hardware for only $90 USD.

However I can not seem to find this.

I think Marduk28 mentioned that, but it was related to the first Kickstarter campaign, which sadly didn't succeed. (Kickstarter doesn't seem to work well for mechanical locks, only fancy "smart home" electric key turners with blinking lights seem to attract the masses...)
The second Kickstarter campaign didn't include that "Lockpicker challenge" offer.

[mh]

Ryan, I like your attitude and enjoyed reading your honest reply. That's a good philosophy for a manufacturer. I wish you all the best with your adventure.

Me too.

Regarding the chamfers - I wonder if the "code cuts" part of the key is really the part that is precisely positioned between shield and plug - since if this part of the key is slightly bent, you still want it to open the lock. And initially I thought that the chamfers serve the purpose to help in that case.
But if only that "code cuts" part is positioned precisely and the other parts can move around more, then you could try to remove some of the chamfering.

Regarding foil impressioning, which is a standard technique in China, where they have a lot of low tolerance dimple locks, but probably completely uncommon in Canada - I have seen a manufacturer use a very thin tip on one of the pins. That tip would perforate the foil and drop too much immediately.

Code: Select all

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No idea whether they were able to patent that type of key pin.

Cheers
mh

[G-lock]

Hello, 1st post from a new member here so forgive me if this is the wrong place for this post. I have a bowley lock and the biggest problem i have with it is that if anyone trys to pick it while its installed you will be locked out until you can remove and disassemble the lock or if possible you could pick it. When you put a tool into it and rotate the inner brass cylinder to the 12 o clock position to gain access to the pins they fall into the brass cylinder and lock it in place. When this happens the key cannot be inserted and the only way to get the lock working again is to remove it & the the pins. I may be wrong about this as i am no lock guru but i cant find another way to get it working again.

[mh]

I tried it. You need an L-shaped strong wire to turn the idler back. It needs to be strong, but the pins just sit on a slot, they don't go in all the way. Therefore if you turn the idler with some torque, they are lifted enough to turn the idler back to 0.

(See the discussion on "bricking" the lock further up in this thread.)

[G-lock]

I tried it. You need an L-shaped strong wire to turn the idler back. It needs to be strong, but the pins just sit on a slot, they don't go in all the way. Therefore if you turn the idler with some torque, they are lifted enough to turn the idler back to 0.

(See the discussion on "bricking" the lock further up in this thread.)

Thanks ill have to try it again i broke a hook trying the 1st time. Still though this would be a pita if you weren't prepared & knew what to do in the event of a attempted picking. I could see someone calling a locksmith due to being locked out.

[Bowley Lock Company]

G-Lock,
Mh is right that the pins don't brick the lock and that it can be turned back. It can take a bit of torque and wiggling to get it out especially on a brand new lock. However on a picking attempt if they did not return the lock back to the home position you would have a bunch of tools stuck in the lock rather than a normal looking lock with the idler at the top as you cold not rotate the idler and then get tool in you would have to rotate the tools in and then if you got stuck there going to stay there. That would at least let you know with certainty that someone was trying to get it.

Mh,
Interesting about the sharp pins. Sharp brass will not be sharp long on hardened 17-4ph though so i don't know if that would help a few years in. To be honest i'm not sure i totally understand how foiling works from the sense that the springs apply a force on the pins and the foil starts to deform.ok. Why does the deformation stop once the pin are at the proper height? the spring force is still acting why doesnt the deformation continue until the deformation is too great. Would lighter springs help.

To comment on your other point it is the distance between the surface of the shield and the Inner diameter of the housing that determines if the bottom pins can travel or not. This means the height of the bottom of the fork to the bottom of the cut plus the bottom pin must be less than that distance. The fork can bend as a unit with respect to the key shaft a decent distance angle with out effecting the forks ability to sit flat on the shield and datum properly. This is because the key hole and shaft are not super tight. If the fork is to bend it will bend at the U of the key and during manufacture if often closes a bit from internal stress relief and needs to be opened a slight amount so it can get around the shield easily. If the fork where to bend in the middle of the bitting it would render the key inoperable at least if it bent more that the clearances allow. This doesnt really happen in our experience unless you try to do that.

Regards,
Ryan

[mh]

My understanding of foil impressioning is that the springs are not very important: an incorrectly set pin stack blocks, and by trying to turn the key further, it is moved a bit against the key pin, which deforms the foil. A correctly set pin stack doesn't block, so there's not enough force on the foil.
I think in practice, the foil will be deformed a bit too much, but the chamfers make the lock open anyway.

If you want to try foil impressioning, here's a set for many (Chinese) keyways: http://www.banggood.com/Multifunctional ... 75188.html This set works with normal (not self-adhesive) foil; if you have a key where foil can be glued to, 3M aluminum foil tape works well.

And here's another reference: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/ ... cks_w.html

[FancyPants]

Thanks for the pics, mh, and nice work. It's definitely a fun lock to see played with.