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Impressioning a key for an Ingersoll 6 padlock

Friday, January 10th, 2025

This keyless padlock was sent to me by a friend as an impressioning challenge a while ago. At LockCon 2024 I was able to get some fitting blanks from a friend, so I could finally get to work. Below you can read about my experience with impressioning a key for this lock.

First two attempts

Starting out I approached the impressioning like I would with a pin tumbler cylinder, by preparing the blank. Since the blanks were steel, I didn’t need to remove any plating, but the surface was very rough so I made it smooth (a mistake, but more about that later).

Tried to figure out the spacing, but it was difficult to see so I tried to get some marks. The first mark was not difficult to find, because the levers bite in the edge of the blank. Marks stayed on the edge, but switched sides from time to time. As cuts got deeper, marks started to get wider and cover more of the surface of the edge.

From time to time marks reappeared on levers I worked on earlier, I think this might be caused by the shape of the levers. I remember from picking other locks with a similar mechanism (Miwa U9, PR) that before getting them open I spent some time tapping multiple levers to set them again. So I took the reappearing marks as a clue that I was getting closer to opening.

I decided to stop my first attempt after working on several levers like this for quite some time without feeling I was getting closer to opening the lock, so I decided I must have filed too deep somewhere earlier. When I tried to figure out the spacing earlier, I removed some material on the first cut on the left and I suspected that might have been too much.

I started the second attempt by preparing the blank again, but didn’t try to find the spacing. Instead I use the key from my first attempt as a reference to make some guiding marks on the side with a marker. Most of that second attempt went like the first, and when I decided to take a break I was looking at two near identical attempts.

Time to think

With only one blank left I decided to take some time to work on other projects and think about possible mistakes I had made in the first two tries.

A conversation with someone about the blanks used in the SSdeV impressioning competition at the Wendt Hausmesse earlier this year finally put me in the right direction. During that competition, in the final round we had to try to make keys for several different cylinder models. Obtaining blanks for some of those had turned to be difficult so on those we had to use universal blanks. One of the downsides we encountered was that sometimes preparing the blank like we were used to, left us with a blank already below the zero cut height. Since I already suspected there could be zero cuts on Ingersoll keys, could it be that I had been setting myself up for failure by preparing the blanks?

Third attempt

Feeling motivated again, I decided to clamp up that final blank. Not having prepared the blank, I took my time finding the first mark. It was a pretty clear “bite”, but before I started filing I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss any other obvious marks. After this the impressioning was very similar to the previous two attempts. I just had to remind myself to check if new levers started to make marks from time to time. And of course the biggest difference was the key finally turning. I did encounter an unexpected surprise though: the key turned freely but I was unable to remove it.

Troubleshooting

After some online research and asking around, I managed to remove the shackle from the padlock, so I was able to remove the core and find out what prevented the key from being removed. My initial thought was canyoning, even though I kept an eye out for that during the impressioning. The real cause was totally different, and not really something I could have prevented. The key wasn’t perfect, but had allowed the gates to align just enough for the sidebar to drop in under tension. After that though, It was stuck so tight that the sidebar springs were too weak to lift the sidebar out again.

Obvious damage to the sidebar where it was forced in a gate. Also note the shallower traces caused by pushing the bar against the levers during the impressioning process

Conclusion

I think the only thing that might have prevented this from happening is having a list of all possible cut depths and making sure to file exactly to those depths on the exact right location of the blank. Should I ever try this again, obtaining a list of the cut depths and making some sort of jig or guide to help with the spacing would help out a lot.

Henri/Greenish

Gates where aligned just enough for the sidebar to drop in

Tags: impressioning
Posted in Impressioning, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Hackerhotel 2024: Safe cracking workshop

Friday, February 16th, 2024

Hugo and I taught Safe cracking to a group of eleven at Hackerhotel 2024. It was great sharing the knowledge and inspiring others. Much respect goes to the attendees, which after a busy conference still had energy to take on this mighty challenge.

Every training needs to start with a good basis. We started with an introduction on what safe locks are about and how they operate, specifically group two safe combination locks. From there, we built knowledge from practical examples and exercises. From simply operating the safe lock by dialing 4L-3R-2L-1R with a known combination, to exploring contact points and graphing.

For this two-hour session, we worked with locks of known combination, and usually only get to complete one and a half graphs in this time. Around six graphs were completed in total, and some even finished all three graphs within the session.

While any training is mostly satisfying a curiosity, we expect this training gave the attendees enough knowledge to give it a try on their own later. Maybe even getting obsessed about it in the process 🙂

Safe manipulation 101 v2

CCBY4.0 Jan-Willem Markus Toool Blackbag

Posted in Locks, Uncategorized, Conference, Decoding, Gatherings | 2 Comments »

UKLS January challenge

Monday, January 1st, 2024

The January challenge is a lockpicking game ran on the UKlocksport forum. In short, the challenge is to picks/impressions/opens one lock a day for the days of January. The rules say to post pictures daily and not to play catch up. As in, to pick a lock every day, not just 31 in the month of January.

You can extend your lockpicking streak, if you so wish. Some people extend the streak by a few days, others do a full year. One exemplary lockpicker, Toni, picked a lock a day for 1093 days straight, which is three days short of three years! Furthermore, Toni started a new streak of several hundred lock in 2022, as well.

The last two locks of the lockpicking streak by Toni are both sides of the same DOM Plura.

Lockpicking collage of the special picks from Toni from the first 365 locks.

I’ve used the January challenge as a good excuse to learn a new skill. For example, in 2018 I’ve impressioned a lock a day in January. In 2019, I’ve impressioned a dozen, and picked locks for the remaining days.

All of my January challenge impressioning opens are on (regularly repinned) Abus C83. As you can imagine, the pictures of the opens are quite similar, thus I’m only posting a few here.

It’s very easy to start the challenge, and then let it drop when that one lock doesn’t open. So to help you along, here are a few tips and tricks.

Don’t set the bar too high, as the difficulty isn’t as important for your daily lock.
Try to incorporate lockpicking in your daily schedule, for example to pick your lock while waiting for public transit, or during a coffee break.
Plan out your month so you have enough easier locks for the busy days of the month.
If you challenge yourself with an F3D, have a contingency when it doesn’t open that quick, as someone on YT.
Skipping posting is better than skipping a pick.
Lastly, share your picked locks, no matter if it’s a steak or not. Celebrate the victories will help you stay motivated.

The two rings are easier locks than the box on the right, but at 25g each, you can’t beat the cores of Master Loto for weight. Toni took a box of these to keep his streak alive during holidays abroad. (Do check the country’s stance on lockpicking, though.)

With picking a lock a day, you built the lockpicking muscle memory. We as Toool advocate for using the three O of out name, oefenen, oefenen, and oefenen. Which is the Dutch word for practice. In English, you could say to pick locks over, over, and over again.

If you are inspired, please join the UKLS forum, and start sharing your picked locks. I would like to extend the invitation to any lockpicking streak, also if your streak starts on another date. Next to practice, share your achievements with the community.

Pictures from Toni have his copyright. The rest are CCBY4.0, as per usual Toool Blackbag license.

Posted in Lockpicking, Keys, Impressioning, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Asking the community: How are pins painted?

Wednesday, November 22nd, 2023

A while ago, we had a discussion on our Discord server on how the pins for pinning kits are painted, as achieving the same effect at home was quite appealing. For example, to accentuating the different pins for teaching, or to make cutaways more fancy.

In this short blog, I’ll share what has been tried, and how we can use your help to solve the mystery.

A picture of a pinning kit by Nigel, Toool UK.

The first clue was from a pinning kit manufacturer, as they shared with a community member that the pins were soaked in bowls of food coloring. I’ve bought water based, and later alcohol based food coloring and tried the same. The color doesn’t really stick to the surface of the metal surface, as the metal was not clean enough. I wasn’t too scientific about improving the wetting and tried different cleaners. The paint didn’t stick to the pins, came on thick, or rubbed off with a towel.

A better attempt was to use alcohol (based) paints used for arts and crafts, as the pins are indeed painted. But the effect was fairly uneven and the paint washed off easily.

The best attempt was also the simplest, by painting the pins with permanent markers. The process isn’t complicated, simply rub the permanent marker on the pins. For a one-off cutaway, this process is quite feasible, but not for big quantities. Cleaning the pins beforehand will likely improve the results as well.

We have tried a few ideas, but this is where we are currently stuck. If you have an idea on how to paint these pins more evenly, leave the suggestions below. It would even be better if you gave the suggestions a go and shared the results with us.

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Asking the community: How are pins painted?

LockCon 2023 Schedule

Sunday, October 1st, 2023

The LockCon schedule is complete!

In the morning and evenings, there will be talks about various lock topics. The afternoon is reserved for the competitions. Starting Friday with Impressioning, Saturday with Lockpicking, and Sunday with the Pentathlon competition. Please see https://blackbag.toool.nl/?p=4228 for the competition rules.

We will have flip overs with the program at the event. You are allowed to fill the gaps in the schedule and take the stage with your own last minute talk or workshop. Swapping time slots isn’t an issue either, just discuss this first.

Thursday
15:00	Room check-in is open
18:00 – 01:00	Socializing
21:00	Conference room open

Friday
07:30 – 10:00	Breakfast
10:00 – 10:30	LockCon Opening
10:30 – 11:30	Evva Elus & Anker 3800 update – Walter Belgers
11:30 – 12:30	TBD – Zeefeene
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch (sandwiches in the conference room)
14:00 – 19:00	Impressioning competition
19:00 – 20:30	Dinner
20:30- 21:30	Locksport journey with Abloy disc detainer locks – Petri Maksimainen (Idanhurja)
21:30	Start of disk detainer competition
21:30- 23:00	Abloy disc detainer workshop by Idanhurja and DaMage
21:30- 23:00	F3D workshop by Nitiflor

Saturday
07:30 – 10:00	Breakfast
10:30 – 11:30	Electronic safe locks – Jan-Willem Markus
11:30 – 12:00	Short speak about history of lock cylinders in Czech country – Lubos Cech (catalocks.eu)
12:30 – 13:00	Group photo – Dennis van Zuijlekom
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch (sandwiches in the conference room)
14:00 – 19:00	Lockpicking competition
19:00 – 20:30	Dinner
20:30- 21:30	Physical Vulnerability Research – Matt Smith (huxleypick)
21:30- 23:00	Locksport – Walter, Jos, Matt, Nigel

Sunday
07:30 – 10:00	Breakfast
11:00 – 11:30	Aubin’s trophy – Eric scaillet
12:00	End of disk detainer competition
12:00 – 16:00	“PENTATHLON” COMPETITION – Parmakey
13:00 – 15:30
15:30 – 16:00	Closing Ceremony

If someone wants to make a calendar file (ICS) and sends it to us, we will add it to this post.

Posted in Uncategorized, LockCon, Conference | Comments Off on LockCon 2023 Schedule

Cutaways, and lever locks

Monday, September 11th, 2023

When we teach lockpicking we usually revert to schematics of locks, and different models for demonstrating the functionality of locks. Usually required as the core functionality is well hidden, and not often observable in action. Multiple skilled machinists have made cutaway locks for the purpose of demonstrating the inner workings of real locks.

At one cutaway themed evening, we had over 50 unique cutaways on the table. From all brands and mechanisms. Some of which even the pins themselves were cutaway.

On an evening with impressioning, a member asked for some blanks to practice with. The call was answered by the keys below. Sadly, it’ll be very hard to find a corresponding lock for the key blanks, as in Europe we have thousands of unique keyways. Even though they all look a-like.

On another evening, we delved deep in lever locks, from your classic Chubb locks to high-end safes. A boroscope was brought as to try to decode some locks by belly reading the levers. E.g. to observe the scratches on the levers and determining the length of the butting making the scratches.

The WE30C also made its appearance, one night. The lock was used on pay phones, and is remarkably hard to lockpick due to the lever blocking system, shown in the top right. As torque is applied, the blocking system engages with the levers, making all levers bind up before the lever tests the gate.

Posted in Locks, Uncategorized, General, Gatherings | Comments Off on Cutaways, and lever locks

Registration for LockCon 2023 is open!

Saturday, July 22nd, 2023

Dear friends,

We are delighted to announce that registration for LockCon 2023 is open! The conference will be held from the 12th of October to the 15th of October at the WestCord Hotel de Veluwe in Garderen, The Netherlands.

The Event

We will welcome registered attendees from Thursday afternoon (check-in 15:00 hr) with a meet and greet in the bar. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we will have talks, workshops, competitions, and social events. And, of course, there will be plenty of opportunities to pick locks. We will have to vacate the hotel again on Sunday evening.

Invitation

LockCon is an event for the locksport community. Everyone with a passion for locksport is welcome, no matter the locksport group you are with. We work with the principle of friends, and friends of friends. If your friends are going to LockCon, ask them to vouch for you.

We have also reserved seats for people we have never met before. If you think you have something to contribute, or just are a very enthusiastic lockpicker who does not have the right connections yet, please contact us through the usual channels.

Hotel

As you may have seen, this year we will reside in a Hotel. This means there will be no dorm rooms, the maximum number of people sharing a room will be 4, and you will be able to suggest preferred roommates. As always, we have a limited amount of beds, so please complete the registration process early. The price for the entire weekend will be €360 per person, and will include LockCon 2023, breakfast and lunch on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, dinner on Friday and Saturday, and lots of fun!

We are looking forward to seeing you there!

LockCon Team

Thursday October 12th 15:00 until Sunday October 15th early evening.

WestCord Hotel de Veluwe | Oud Millingenseweg 62 | 3886MJ Garderen | The Netherlands

https://westcordhotels.com/hotel/hotel-de-veluwe/

https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3591498

Posted in Lockpicking, Uncategorized, LockCon, Conference, Gatherings | Comments Off on Registration for LockCon 2023 is open!

Lips shared access

Wednesday, July 5th, 2023

Locks don’t have to be hard to pick to be interesting, and a Lips lock Jos loaned me is a fine example of that.

Lately I’ve been drawn to picking lever locks, as they have that nice “Skyrim” vibe. You can get a long way with just some bent wires. Knowing that, Jos brought this nice Lips lock to a Toool meetup, and I got to play with it a little.

Picking it is pretty straightforward, as there are no false gates on the lever, and no curtain. The pin in the keyway does make navigation a bit awkward, but all in all it’s not hard to pick.

Things get more interesting when you take a closer look at the lock.

First of all, it’s a Lips lock. Lips is a Dutch lock manufacturer that was founded in Dordrecht in 1871 by Jacobus Lips. In 1971 it became part of Chubb, and since 2000 it’s part of the Assa Abloy group.

The second name on the lock is P.G.E.M. The P.G.E.M. (or Provinciale Gelderse Energie Maatschappij) was a utility company delivering electricity and gas to the whole province of Gelderland in The Netherlands. Every Dutch province used to have its own utility company. It was owned by the province, and the local municipalities.

In the 1990’s the Dutch government decided all the utility companies had to be privatized, and P.G.E.M. became part of Nuon (which is now a part of Vattenfall).

Below P.G.E.M. are the letters LS, that stand for Laagspanning or Low Voltage. PGEM used these locks to secure electrical substations, and LS indicates this particular lock was used on a low voltage substation. The other side of the lock tells us more about this.

Here we see “Onderstation Woudhuis” written in pencil. Onderstation Woudhuis is a substation located in the city of Apeldoorn.

The double keyway is a striking feature which reminds of dual custody locks, only this isn’t that. It’s shared access, where only one of both keys is required to open the lock. This becomes clear when the faceplate is removed.

This seems to be a form of master keying without having to need to add extra gates to the levers, which would compromise the security of the lock.

Every lever has two cuts at the bottom. A closer look at two of the levers shows how different cut heights make it possible to open the lock with two different keys.

Moral of the story: locks are fun in so many ways.

~Greenish

After posting the original blog, a good friend in the UK shared a page with the patent of the ‘Mastership’ two keyhole lock from 1889. http://www.historywebsite.co.uk/Museum/locks/gazetteer/gibbons/gibbons6.htm

Tags: Locks, Lips, Lever
Posted in Lockpicking, Keys, Locks, Uncategorized, General | 1 Comment »

EVVA ELUS cylinder

Wednesday, June 28th, 2023

I recently acquired an EVVA cylinder stamped “ELUS”. Nothing could be found about it, so I decided to investigate it.

Looking at this picture, it looks pretty standard. It is a variation of the EVVA NL system, which is inself is a variation of the TSC system. The NL is a 5-pin cylinder with multiple possible key profiles and with master keying in the bitting.

But: this system has additional electronics attached to it:

The electronics implement a Temporary Access Function, similar to that in the EVVA ICS TAF cylinder, invented around 25 years later than this. It was an invention of EVVA Netherlands with one of their partners, but it never reached production.

Read more about it i n t h e p a p e r I ‘v e w r i t t e n a b o u t i t.

-Walter.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

What happens at a Toool meetup?

Wednesday, May 31st, 2023

In the current Tool rhythm, we have one meetup a week. Both the Amsterdam and Eindhoven meetups are Bi-weekly, where we planned to have one meetup a week. We come together to discuss lock topics, compete in the Toool competition, and generally have fun picking locks.

In this post, I’d like to share pictures topics and projects that have come across at Toool meetups.

A locked coin safe was brought to the meeting. Due to the construction of the box, the lock was a very difficult to put torque on with a turning tool. We succeeded in opening the lock several times, and had great fun picking the lock in literally seconds with an electronic pick.

Once in a while, we receive donations from community members. This Sparrows vault was donated to us with the request for an upgrade to the lock, as the original served not enough of a challenge. We complied, and mounted a Kaba Mas X0 Electronic lock on the Vault.

Everyone has a go-to pickset, one which is a mix of everything. We also bring Sunday’s best to dedicated sets. For example, Moki makes great picksets, which are even better with homemade handles. Or a shiny Multipick set, be it dimple or a dual-gauge set designed by Christina Palmer. Where the only part staged about the photo is to have all the sets neatly displayed.

We went to the Association des Crocheteurs de France conference in December 2022, and brought back a few tools and picks from France. We attempted to pick the Polox-5, and Fichet F3D. Both attempts made possible by the incredible work of Nitiflor, who designed and 3D printed these picks.

Jos brought a suitcase with Chinese locks, which was gifted to him for organizing LockCon 2016. At the time, these locks were unobtainable, and information sparse. The mechanisms are very intricate with 50-element wafer locks, and cores with continuous rotation similar to the Yuema 750, an implementation we have yet to see used in Europe.

If this blog sparked interest in lockpicking, or if you have been picking and would like to join a meetup, please contact us. We are always welcome to new people, be it to teach the basics or to share advanced tricks. https://toool.nl/Gatherings

Posted in Lockpicking, Uncategorized, General, Gatherings | Comments Off on What happens at a Toool meetup?