lever locks, the next generation?

[Guest]

There is a thread going on in another part of this forum about designing 'unpickable' pin tumbler locks, i wonder if anyone has any ideas about making lever locks harder or impossible to open without the key.

my idea would be to put a 'one way gate' into the false notches, thereby trapping the stump and locking the bolt in place ... it would be ok with the key as the lever heights would be correct as the stump slides across.

or what about a double turn of the key, ie two stumps forcing a second picking (before anyone pulls me up on this, i know the bolt would be about a foot long)

tony

[PickPick]

Well, safe locks can contribute a lot of ideas. I'm still looking for infos/patents for the Bode Tangential lock eg, which has a cross shaped key and four lever packs! Then there are some very interesting German designs mainly from the first half of the last century, there's Chubb detector, there's this design feature where you have to put the key into some sort of drawer which is pushed into the lock and rotated via a handle.

Trouble is that these locks are big, bulky and expensive. One of the main reasons that led to the success of the pin tumbler design is its flexibility, they fit in almost anywhere.

Anyway, a big advantage imho would be building the locks in a way that they aren't saddle-coded, meaning that you can't decode the shape of the key from the relative heights of the levers.

[mbell]

Talking of a double turning of the key.

I have just the thing for inspiration. Got a lock of eBay a few weeks ago, advertised as a "5 pin" lock. What the person selling it actually meant by that was the locking mechanism is five 18mm diameter round bolts.

Anyway, this lock has five levers, each lever has four gates. So the key has to be turned a total of 4 times to protrude the 18mm diameter bolts a total of >40mm. Each turn of the key requires an entirely different bitting so the lock would have to be picked four times to unlock.

The manufacturer is 'Cerruti'. An Italian make. I will post a picture of this beast if anyone's interested. Maybe it's a bit hard to understand my description.

[toomush2drink]

Wow 4 gates on each lever ? That sounds like the russian lock mentioned on here some where but has it got false notches as these can really cause the problems ?

[mbell]

I find this lock interesting, so I presume others will:

The Lock
A Lever

Bit of a poor quality photo of the lock - This digital camera is good at anything other than low light or close-ups. I have included a HPC half diamond for scale reference. I was going to put a 50p in the photo, but loads of people wouldn't know how big even that was.

Just the one stump. No false notches. Yes, this lock would be pickable but it would be so frustrating! Thinking you've picked it and the door not opening!

The most secure lever lock I'm aware of (Possibly other than selected safe locks) is one of Chubb Custodial's w/16 double gated levers!

[Rockford]

Any chance of a better shot of the key ?.

I think I saw this advertised on ebay - must keep my eye out for another as it looks a good pick.

Rockford.....

[mbell]

The Key
The key is a strange profile. I dont know how to explain it but the bitting is kinda offset and one side widens further from the stem.

This lock really confused me to begin with. At the moment it's just one of those locks I like staring at, like Ingersoll's 10 lever, Medecos, Abloys, Bramahs etc but I might try to develop some kind of pick one day.

[Rockford]

Thanks mbell.

Wicked looking - have fun with it.

Rockford.....

[EvoRed]

4 throws?! With no anti picks though it shouldn't be too difficult to pick. Now if it had anti picks...!

You can pick up a Union double throw cheaply, only 3 levers. I've found it a bit of a to pick with two wires though as the levers are very tightly sprung, requiring quite some force to lift the levers.