Medeco can blow the wind out of your sails

by **mastersafecracker** » 18 Dec 2004 11:59

About 27 or so years ago I was a young Locksmith apprentice and I was looking at some old Locksmith Ledger magazines and I came across an ad for a pick for Medeco locks. Asking price was around $500.00 and at the age of 14 it might as well been $1,000,000,000.00 Then I could never find it in another magazine again, Just vanashed as fast as it appeared! Years later I heard that Medeco had Bought the rights to this tool and locked it away in their vault somewhere. Makes sense because this would have hurt their sales a great deal as they were a up and coming company at the time. I do know that the Britts make a decoder for Medeco that is only sold to Governments, CIA etc. (Top secret) stuff.

by **HeadHunterCEO** » 18 Dec 2004 12:02

mastersafecracker wrote:About 27 or so years ago I was a young Locksmith apprentice and I was looking at some old Locksmith Ledger magazines and I came across an ad for a pick for Medeco locks. Asking price was around $500.00 and at the age of 14 it might as well been $1,000,000,000.00 Then I could never find it in another magazine again, Just vanashed as fast as it appeared! Years later I heard that Medeco had Bought the rights to this tool and locked it away in their vault somewhere. Makes sense because this would have hurt their sales a great deal as they were a up and coming company at the time. I do know that the Britts make a decoder for Medeco that is only sold to Governments, CIA etc. (Top secret) stuff.

ya some guy invented a tool that weighed the stacks and herefore could determine the bottom pin number.

thats why medeco now uses the bottom/driver pins that add up to the same length as well as the hardedned rods of varying length driven into the center of the bottom pins.

throws off the weight

by **Romstar** » 18 Dec 2004 12:17

Medeco was never unpickable. Not then, and not now. They are just difficult.

There have always been tools for figuring out these things, and I suspect that there always will be.

Romstar

by **begginerlockpicker** » 18 Dec 2004 14:10

man you were a apprentice at 14.... im suprised they let poeple that young be 1...im 15 and i asked and they said i was 2 young..they didnt even ask how good i was :cry:

by **mastersafecracker** » 18 Dec 2004 14:24

begginerlockpicker don't give up, don't take no for an answer. Stop by and visit lockshops after school and they will get to know you. Never under estimate the power of determination. They will become impressed with you! You are the future of locksmithing if you don't give up so easy.

Never stop learning :lol:

by **Luke** » 18 Dec 2004 23:06

Or you can just be cool and go to a big place who always takes apprentices and ask for locks and repetively getting them, and listen to what they say out the back im now starting to hear "Dude offer him the job"
"Man he;s only 14, when he's 15 i will"
4 months baby

by **ferret1729** » 13 Jan 2005 23:51

Here's what happened:

Lock Technology, (the company which brought us the KM3 code machine, and the first Medeco cylinder ignition lock replacement), developed this decoder and emulator kit. They first approached Medeco, asking for $50,000 to bury the design, (naturally Medeco wouldn't pay). LT offered, sold about a dozen to locksmiths, and an unknown number to government agencies. It's what Medeco did in response that is truly newsworthy.

Here's how the kit worked:

A probe, made from a Medeco keyblank with an implanted tube, said tube incorporating an elbow bend upward, introduced a fine probe wire by means of said tube, into the sidebar groove in a Medeco bottom pin. Fore/ Aft freedom of movement of the probe body was resolved to find the angle of cut, and wire travel to point of contact with the driver pin was measured to find the depth of cut. Components were then assembled from the kit, (dovetailed together), to form a key.

Here's how Medeco obsoleted this system within the 24 hours that followed:

Medeco changed their bottom pin design literally overnight, eliminating the extruded sidebar slot in the pin stock for depths three through six, and producing their sidebar slots by milling with a very small end mill. Said sidebar slots never reached the point of the pins. In some, (found in the field, but never in their keying kits), the sidebar slot was pocket milled at the minimum size required to accept the sidebar leg, and never opened to the top or bottom of the pin, (useless for masterkeying).

The Aftermath:

Medeco bought up six of the kits originally purchased by locksmiths, (the other six are believed to be collecting dust in attics and basements, but no one really knows). None of the kits offered on any of the restricted keyways were ever requested or ever made, (maybe this was good for Lock Tech, as they didn't have the blanks to make them from anyway). When the Medeco patent expired and Medeco Biaxial was introduced, they went back to extruded sidebar slots in the pin stock and nobody seemed to mind. Since Medeco now has 36 different kinds of key cuts, it is unlikely that anyone will attempt a dovetail- component key emulation kit again. Of the thirty some different keyways in the original classic Medeco system, only four were made available by aftermarket keyblank manufacturers after the expiration of the original patent, so most of Medeco's original key control has well outlived the first patent. The Biaxial patent is approaching its end and the new m3 system has already been launched. Medeco is still finding new ways and places to introduce more hardened inserts for drill resistance, they still manage a program of total key control, (they have enough millions of key combinations available to them that they never make the same key twice), and they are still considered "the one to beat".

by **Romstar** » 14 Jan 2005 1:57

Well, I'll be .

Someone who knows some history. :lol:

Medeco are fun locks, there is no mistaking that at all. I think everyone should have a few gos at the things.

Romstar

by **Kigga** » 17 Jan 2005 16:35

this might help for those who seek to pick the impossible

http://www.fortliberty.org/military-lib ... ocks.shtml

by **stalked** » 20 Jan 2005 15:53

Not everybody uses the information you provided responsibly. Sometimes it's best NOT to be able to pick a lock. There are people out there who need a challenge with good reason.

by **TOWCH** » 20 Jan 2005 16:15

It's doubtfull your stalker learned on this site.

by **stalked** » 21 Jan 2005 4:00

Good point. Hopefully his I.Q. is limited even if he ever does encounter the information from another source. I can only hope he's easily frustrated and even if he tries to defeat this lock, he won't be able to and will give up. I don't pick locks, don't ever plan to try because I don't have any need to, but I imagine that even given instructions this is still not the most simple operation and is probably more time consuming than the average lock. If he ever attempts to pick this on my door, maybe he'll get caught this time. Of course he'd get a slap on the wrist, two weeks in jail, and community service at most, but at least I would know who he is and be able to issue a restraining order on him.

by **Kigga** » 21 Jan 2005 15:19

why are you here if you dont want to pick locks....
that info i provided is to help whoever wants to try to pick medeco locks...

by **Johnny P** » 4 Feb 2005 4:59

It's the side bar that makes Medeco so hard to pick, not the angled bottom pins.

I've picked a number of them at a local hotel on office doors. The first time, I asked the guy who's office it was to see his key to make sure the lock still worked OK in case some master pins had fallen. Most hotels are on a master key system. He gave me the key which was inside the office and I was surprised to see it was a restricted Medeco with the locksmith's name and phone number embossed on it.

It was a lever lock and I had just raked it and it was open in, like, 10 seconds. I also didn't feel the familiar "click" of the sidebar I usually get with Medeco even when using the key.

I was called out several more times to unlock this hotel's office doors because the locksmith who did the keying job on this place wasn't running calls on Sundays. This was some nice money for me for about 6 months.

Then, one day, they asked me to dupe the keys for them and I couldn't because of the restricted keyway. Had to tell them to go to the original locksmith.

Anyway, if the original locksmith hadn't neglected to replace the sidebar when he pinned these locks, I never would have been able to pick these.

If we could come up with a way to put pressure on the sidebar without drilling a hole, these would not be difficultto pick at all. I've looked and can't find a way to get something behind the side bar to put pressure on it.

by **Hyperion** » 4 Feb 2005 13:50

You were able to simply rake a medeco lock??

I haven't even seen one in person yet so correct me if I am wrong, but isn't that like remarkable bordering on , "WOW!"?? to rake a medeco lock succesfully in around 10 seconds?

Are you related in any small way to Jeff Sitar hehe j/k

Regards Hyperion

Medeco can blow the wind out of your sails

Medeco Pick

Re: Medeco Pick

begginerlockpicker

Medeco Decoder Kit (27 years ago)

Thanks a lot

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