Padlock with octagonal shackle

[jimu57]

“A determined thief with an angle grinder and enough time can cut through nearly any lock,” says Master Lock's Justin Matuszek. “But more often, the thief has a bolt cutter and is trying to work fast.” He says the thicker a lock's shackle and the less it's exposed, the more secure the lock is from bolt cutters."

Wow! Matuszek must be a genius. At lease a room temperature IQ.

[GWiens2001]

Wow! Matuszek must be a genius. At lease a room temperature IQ.

That sounds pretty accurate.

Of course, it is 72 in this room right now.

Gordon

[Silverado]

<BR abp="907">Wow! Matuszek must be a genius. At lease a room temperature IQ.

<BR abp="908"><BR abp="909">That sounds pretty accurate. <BR abp="910"><BR abp="911">Of course, it is 72 in this room right now. <BR abp="912"><BR abp="913">Gordon

68 in here! I'll go with that!

I agree, I feel like they're doing a lot of 'Puffing' as far as that goes. It had to be a dull bit, or maybe they were trying to drill it with a Phillips head bit driver?

[gumptrick]

Perhaps they were using a dull drillbit, I understand the legal term is 'Puffing', when the manufacturer lies about their 'fine' product

There's any number of possibilities. Someone could have been using the wrong bit, wrong speed, or was drilling in the wrong place.

Plus I'm sure a company the size of Master gets tons of feedback ranging from the worst possible criticism to glowing praise. It's simply a matter of cherry-picking the best praise for their marketing.

[GWiens2001]

Amazing how long it takes to drill brass when your drill is set for reverse.

Gordon

[gumptrick]

Amazing how long it takes to drill brass when your drill is set for reverse.

Gordon

You joke about that, but I actually worked with a guy (who had an engineering degree, no less!) do that exact thing. He ended up being banned from the machine shop at our university because of his consistent and frequent screwups--not only by the shop supervisor (who was tired of him breaking things), but also by our boss, who was tired of paying for his mistakes.

[Ralph_Goodman]

Amazing how long it takes to drill brass when your drill is set for reverse.

Gordon

You joke about that, but I actually worked with a guy (who had an engineering degree, no less!) do that exact thing. He ended up being banned from the machine shop at our university because of his consistent and frequent screwups--not only by the shop supervisor (who was tired of him breaking things), but also by our boss, who was tired of paying for his mistakes.

They are really just giving these degrees away nowadays.

Just to clarify, he already had an engineering degree but he was still working in the University Machine shop? Or was he in school at the time getting the degree or additional degree?

Also, back to the original topic, I have never known any polygonal shackle to hold up to cutting attacks remarkably better than a rounded shackle. It comes down to the metal in my experience.

[billdeserthills]

Amazing how long it takes to drill brass when your drill is set for reverse.

Gordon

You joke about that, but I actually worked with a guy (who had an engineering degree, no less!) do that exact thing. He ended up being banned from the machine shop at our university because of his consistent and frequent screwups--not only by the shop supervisor (who was tired of him breaking things), but also by our boss, who was tired of paying for his mistakes.

They are really just giving these degrees away nowadays.

Just to clarify, he already had an engineering degree but he was still working in the University Machine shop? Or was he in school at the time getting the degree or additional degree?

Also, back to the original topic, I have never known any polygonal shackle to hold up to cutting attacks remarkably better than a rounded shackle. It comes down to the metal in my experience.

In that case I'm calling shenanigans on the whole Master padlock 'boron shackle' thing
at least when Medeco sells a 'boron shackle' padlock, theirs has the same coloration as the #70 proof chain does

[gumptrick]

Just to clarify, he already had an engineering degree but he was still working in the University Machine shop? Or was he in school at the time getting the degree or additional degree?

He was a graduate student; he had a batchelor's degree in chemical engineering. He was working on his Masters/Phd in Polymer Science. At the time I was the manager of the polymer lab belonging to the professor he was studying under. Neither of us were employees of the departmental machine shop, but the shop was available for our research use.

It was terribly frustrating because he was a really nice guy, very friendly and helpful to anyone. But he was completely incompetent when it came to anything involving tools, machinery, etc. I had a lot of machine shop experience and designed/built a lot of test fixtures for our lab. My boss wanted him to get involved with that so he could learn more, and be able to do some of that work on his own without needing me to do every little thing. But he just kept failing at even the most simple of tasks. Even using a drill press to drill a hole in 2x4 would probably result a broken drill bit, or worse. He actually did more harm than good when trying to "help out". While he was a walking disaster if tools (especially power tools) were involved, surprisingly he didn't damage any of the expensive analytical equipment we had, a lot of which was very fragile.

He did eventually end up getting his pHd, and that's honestly scary. Though, the longer I worked there the more it became apparent that graduation had nothing to do with your academic ability. Rather, you were pretty much guaranteed a degree if you put up with the boss's slave-driving for enough time. Basically, the professor in charge published a bunch of research in his name, but 99% of the work was done by the students. He really did work them like slaves. Fortunately that didn't apply to me since I was an employee of the university, not a student. I heard that after he graduated his first employment only lasted 6 months.

Also, back to the original topic, I have never known any polygonal shackle to hold up to cutting attacks remarkably better than a rounded shackle. It comes down to the metal in my experience.

That's been my experience too. The amount of metal it adds over the same size circular shackle is trivial. I am 100% sure that it's a marketing angle to make the lock look different and stand out when hanging on the shelf at home depot.

[gumptrick]

In that case I'm calling shenanigans on the whole Master padlock 'boron shackle' thing
at least when Medeco sells a 'boron shackle' padlock, theirs has the same coloration as the #70 proof chain does

That's certainly possible. One thing they may be doing is adding just a little bit of boron to the alloy just so they can use the name, while Medeco uses a higher %, or has a better heat treatment.

I don't think the color means much. The gold-ish color on #70 chain isn't from the steel itself, rather it's a plating that's applied afterward. Zinc Chromate. It's purpose is just to prevent the chain from rusting. You see the same thing on a lot of steel hardware/parts. Steel alloyed with boron in its natural state (unplated) will look the same as any other kind of steel would.

[jimu57]

Shear strength is shear strength. A round shackle has a greater cross section than hex shapes. Then apply math.

[gumptrick]

Shear strength is shear strength. A round shackle has a greater cross section than hex shapes. Then apply math.

The question of which has more cross-section depends on how you compare them. Are you circumscribing the circle over the octagon? Or are you circumscribing the octagon over the circle?



But in either case the difference in area is minuscule. You could certainly calculate the shear strength difference between the two but it will be negligible because the difference in area is too.

Also, I don't think anyone is going to be cutting a shackle in a pure shear setup. They're going to be using a saw, grinder, or bolt cutters. None of which are an example of shear.

[jimu57]

If the holes in the body for the shackle is made for a round shackle then the octagonal would be that diameter across the corners, and therefore would have a smaller cross section.

[femurat]

Good point gumptrick. The shackle get machined to fit the hole, so the octagon is bigger than the circle.

We are splitting the hair here...

Cheers

[9jack9]

So glad this turned into a worthwhile conversation (unlike everything else I've ever posted here )