The Pentathlon competition is a series of five lock challenges sponsored and hosted by Parmakey. The competitors had to pick a pin tumbler, pick a dimple, impression a key, pick a safe lock, and pick a car lock. Twenty competitors joined the challenge.
Torsten won the competition with 52 points and won a Sparrows Vorax lockpickset, a book on historic keys. Decoder, with 50 points, won the second price and received a Sparrows Tuxedo Royale and a book on safe lock history. Robert won the third price with 42 points and received a Sparrows Tuxedo set, as well as a book on locksmithing history. All three also received a bottle of Nabucco wine.
The Dutch Open impressioning championship is a competition in making a key for a C83 cylinder in the least amount of time. For the qualifying round, 34 competitors joined, of which, 27 (~80%) opened the qualifier lock within 60 minutes. The quickest twelve continued to the A and B finals, where they attempted six more locks in 15-minutes per round.
Jos won the competition and received the new Multipick ERAS dimple and disc detainer set. Manfred won the second price and received a Sparrows Tuxedo royale lockpickset and a Multipick cutaway lock. Oli received the Sparrows Vorax lockpickset as well as a Sparrows pinning mat as a third price. Alex, Walter, and Jord received the Multipick Elite LockNoob 10-piece duo peak set, Sparrows Tuxedo Royale, and Sparrows Tuxedo, respectively.
RubberBanned won the B-finals and received a Sparrows Vorax lockpick set. Jan-Willem with the second place won a Sparrows Tuxedo royale. Cocolitos with the third place won a Sparrows Darkshift lockpick set. Morris, Clefmentine, and Relocker received the Sparrows Darkshift, and Sparrows Tuxedo set.
From 12 to 15 October 2023, Toool organized LockCon, a Locksport conference with attendees from Europe and the USA. Here is a recap of this year’s event at the beautiful Westcord Hotel Veluwe in Garderen.
On a warm late summer day, we started LockCon. After check-in and setup at the venue, the first of guests already arrived. It was great to meet so many friends again. On Thursday evening, we dined at a restaurant at walking distance from the venue, after which we set up the conference hall for the talks and competitions. We protected the tables with stucco runner, as locks and vices can otherwise easily damage furniture. The rest of the evening was used to meet new people, catch up with friends and discuss lock topics at the hotel bar.
After a first night of not enough sleep, we had breakfast at the venue’s restaurant. The food selection was nice, from the usual bread to fruit salad, yogurt, scrambled egg, and poffertjes! Jos opened the conference by highlighting achievements of the community, including the LPU belt explorer picture archive and Locksport. Jos thanked the sponsors, Abus, Multipick, Sparrows, and Dulimex, as well as the LockCon team, who make LockCon possible.
The first talk was by Walter, who introduced the Evva Elus electromechanical temporary access function lock, and updated the attendees on the Anker 3800 research. It’s incredible what we can do with a bit of dedication and a 3d printer. There was an active debate if Anker 3800 magnets can be overlifted.
In another talk, Zeefeene shared his insights in manufacturing locks in China. From the lesson in using chopsticks to a deep dive in lock diplomacy. The highlight of the talk were the videos of lock manufacturing equipment, which showed keyway broaches to full automatic lock assembly machines. It was eye-opening as these insights are rarely shared.
After lunch and socializing, it was time to set up for the impressioning championship. Thirty-four competitors tried their skill against the Abus C83. It was nice to compete again, and it’s amazing to see how much different it was compared to the competition last year. In both finals, the majority locks opened, with several competitors opening all the locks.
After dinner, with again a good selection of food, we had an evening of disc detainers. Idanhurja gave a talk on his Abloy disc detainer picking adventures. From figuring out Abloy classic from first principles to advanced techniques to defeat other Disc locks from the same brand. The rest of the evening was filled with workshops on the Abloy classic by Idanhurja and the DaMage Fichet F3D (Not a DD) workshop by Nitiflor. We also made a start with the disc detainer competition. I’ve selected five locks, from ‘relatively easy’ to ‘unlikely to be opened’ and Sparrows sponsored the disc detainer picks.
Saturday we started with my talk about electronic safe locks. I’ve shared my insights in how you can attack embedded systems and specifically electronic safes. The target is the Kaba-Mas X0 series locks. Starting from the X07 from ’92 and building to analyzing the electronics of the X09. I’ve shared about hardware reverse engineering, but also high-end techniques like laser fault injection used to extract the memory content of the lock. While still a lot of work has to be done, progress is made.
Lubos Cech shared stories about the early European lock industry. For example, the euro profile cylinder hasn’t been the standard forever. One manufacturer designed and patented the hole through the two lock bodies to fit a mounting screw. While this is regarded as a mistake from a security perspective, the competitors worked around the patent and came up with many innovative solutions. Including clamping the lock from the side in various ways. The stories fit quite well with the lessons learned in manufacturing shared by Zeefeene.
For the lockpicking championship, fifty-one competitors joined. We started in groups of nine and worked towards a bracketed system after the first round. Many people opened locks, and some were unlucky on the table placement. A lot of pin tumblers have been picked from the following selection: Kibb, Nemef, Mastermate, Dom Plura, Destil, Era, Basi, M&C, S^2, Zi-Ikon, and Winkhaus.
In the evening, Matt Smith (Huxleypick) ran his presentation on Physical Vulnerability Research. In which he shared the things he researched over the years and how others can get involved as well. After that, we ran had the price ceremony for the Lockpicking, Impressioning, and Toool NL competition.
We ended the night with a panel on the new book Locksport. Walter, Jos, Matt, and Nigel shared their stories on what it’s like to write a book on the subject. Where the key point is: it’s a lot of work. A nice summer project, which ends up being several years of small improvements until there is something really called a book. This book is a great introduction to the hobby and will make Locksport more popular than ever.
On Sunday morning, a presentation and panel discussion on RFID hacking was organized by Torsten, Christian Holler and mh. It was well worth the time and certainly interesting to see how hotel cards function. Mh shared a list of the current RFID devices, for those willing to get started.
BugBlue shared how the badge works and how you can start working with shop price tag e-paper displays. It’s a great idea, and hopefully we will see more like it for other events. https://openepaperlink.de/
The final event at LockCon was the Pentathlon competition, hosted by the Italians from ParmaKey. Within about an hour, the competitors had to complete five lockpicking challenges. Pin tumbler picking, dimple picking, creating a key with impressioning, lever lock picking, and car lockpicking. For each challenge, a time limit is given and if you didn’t finish the challenge in the limit, you have to wait a couple of minutes before starting the next one. Participants shared that waiting four minutes after failing the impressioning challenge indeed felt punishing. Mostly, because everyone who passed the gate in time got to continue with the next challenges. In the closing ceremony, the prices for the disc detainer competition and Pentathlon competition were handed out. After which we cleaned up and said our goodbyes.
I would like to thank the people who made LockCon possible. Thanks to Sparrows, who sponsored their disc detainer lockpicks for the dd competition and a large box of goodies including various lockpicking sets. Thank you, Multipick, for sponsoring the prices for the competition, including various community lockpicking sets from Christina, Decoder, and LockNoob. As well as a ERAS disc detainer lockpick for Toool to practice with.
For as long as we work with Abus C83 in the Impressioning championships, Abus sponsors the locks and blanks for the competition. The majority of locks and blanks are used up, and the remaining will be used to teach the skill and help people new to the hobby getting started.
Thanks to Dulimex for sponsoring five Pro-Line padlocks with a Tokoz core to challenge the lockpickers with a unique challenge. The group from Italy, with ParmaKey ran the Pentathlon competition for us, and we thank them for all their effort.
Thanks to the LockCon team who made LockCon possible. Without them, it wouldn’t be possible: Jos, Holly, Chantal, Jan-Willem, and Hugo. While organizing this event was a lot of work, it was well worth it. Finally, thanks to all presenters, other organizers, and participants for joining LockCon as you made it a great event again. We hope to see you all again next year!
All the pictures are by Toool NL. Feel free to use the photos of locks under CCBY4.0, and for pictures with people, please ask for permission first.
In an effort to bring people up to speed on the Dutch Open Competitions at LockCon, we are publishing the competition rules. The PDF below are rules for the Lockpicking, Impressioning and Lever lockpicking competition, exported from the ‘How to run LockCon’ document written by Walter in 2016.
We have a lockpicking, impressioning, disk detainer, and Lockpicking Pentathlon. The Pentathlon has five opening techniques which includes picking, lever lockpicking, car locks and much more.
The organizers will put up flip overs, on which you can register yourself for the competition. Please be on time when the competition starts. We aim to have Impressioning on Friday afternoon, Lockpicking on Saturday afternoon, and the Pentathlon on Sunday.
Lockpicking
For LockCon 2023 we will run the lockpicking competition with locks commonly found in the Netherlands, in addition to locks kindly sponsored by Zeefeene and Nigel from Toool UK.
The locks are pickable with normal lockpicks, of which we do not have a restriction for custom or commercial.
We aim to have locks without a secondary locking system, I.e. sidebar.
Applying torque on the tailpiece instead of using a tension wrench is allowed.
The time per round is adjusted for the difficulty of the lock, usually 5/10/15 minutes per round.
Impressioning
The Impressioning competition will be on Abus C83 locks, kindly sponsored by Abus. The first round will be an hour, and the A and B finals are planned to be six rounds of 15 minutes each.
In addition to the rules below, we added several small nuances to the rules:
The tailpiece of the lock needs to be unobstructed. As in, no torque can be applied from the tailpiece. Please take care to mount the lock properly, and not pinch the tailpiece.
Any newly invented tool or technique can only be used in the competition after explicit permission of the Judges.
Please see the Dutch Open Impressioning Championship 2022 report for more information on the competition. https://blackbag.toool.nl/?p=4222
Disk detainer competition
We will have a disk detainer lockpicking competition for the first time. For which, Sparrows kindly sponsored five of their disk detainer lockpicks. The competition will run throughout the event as a self timed competition.
There will be three to five locks, from easy to fairly difficult.
Locks are not guaranteed to be front tensioning, but can all be opened with the tools provided.
Please keep the combinations a secret for others competing.
The tools are not fragile, but shouldn’t be abused either. We have some spares, and come to the organizers if the tools are defective.
For people that are either new to disk detainers or don’t like competing, there will be tools and locks available to learn the technique, as well as workshops in picking high security disk detainers. We will also bring locks with much higher difficulty, starting at Abus plus with butterfly disks, to Tokoz Pro. Picking these high-end locks is left as an exercise to the attendees. (Maybe bring your own tools for these.)
Jan-Willem wrote a report in the Dutch Open championship in Impressioning, held at LockCon 2022. The report talks about the parts of the competition which are rarely discussed, like the bitting of the locks and the opening count of each lock. Hopefully this report is of use for anyone into competitive impressioning.
Our appreciation go to Abus for their generosity of sponsoring the competition locks and blanks. Abus has sent us the locks for LockCon 2023, as well. Which is on Friday 13th of October.
In an effort to quantify the locksport world, I’m taking my measuring tools to locksport in an attempt to learn the details. For example, how much torque is required to pick a lock. With this knowledge, we can build better lockpicks, and teach proper technique. In this blog, I’ve set out to compare the hardness of key blanks for impressioning.
As I’m not a machinist, nor do I have access to fancy hardness measuring equipment, I’ve found the cheapest method I could use at home. There are many methods, and many systems, to measure the hardness of metal. One difficulty was to get familiar with the lingo and to find a measurement tool that works for key like metals, thin, soft, etc.
The most common method of cheap hardness testing is to use Rockwell hardness testing files from measuring hardness of knifes. Usually in the range of C40 to C65 in increments of five. I’ve found similar methods online for testing the hardness of lead with pencils. Where HB hardness pencil will be equivalent to a certain percentage lead in tin. To my knowledge, none such system exists for brass.
More expensive methods press a hardened piece of metal with a known force into the sample, and measuring the indentation. While most of these measuring jigs are too expensive, I’ve found one for cheap. That is the Poldihammer test, which is sold on eBay for around €100. The tool uses a captive ball bearing which presses both on a bar of known hardness and the sample. You just simply place it on the object and hit it with a hammer. The ball bearing presses with equal force into both metals object. Comparing the dents gives you the Brinell hardness.
My Poldihammer came with a small magnifier and scale. It’s not so easy to use, and the resolution is minimal. The kit also comes with convention tables, but they feel very approximate. My solution is to measure the indentation with a digital microscope and calculate the BHN from this formula from Wikipedia:
BHN = Brinell Hardness Number (kgf/mm2). P = applied load in kilogram-force (kgf) D = diameter of indenter (mm) d = diameter of indentation (mm)
It doesn’t take much to use the dent on the reference bar to calculate the force. As the force is equal on the key, we can use the force to calculate the hardness of the keys. Let’s take a look at a real world example. The next two images are the dents under high magnification.
Key for measurement B1: 214.581 by 209.048 pixels. This is 2.00 mm on average.Reference bar with hardness 187. Measurement B1: 163.809 by 162.959 pixels. 1.55 mm average width.
For completeness, I’ve added the calculations as to make the method repeatable, and accessible to more hobbyists. The force is calculated as follows: P = BHN(reference) * PI * D * (D – SQRT(D^2 – X^2)). Where X is the dent on the reference bar. In LibreOffice Calc, this is =187*PI()*10*(10-SQRT(10^X^2)).
The hardness of the key is calculated BHN(Key) = P /(PI * D *(D^2-Y^2)). Where Y is the dent on the key. In LibreOffice Calc, this is =P/(PI()10(10-SQRT((10^2)-(Y^2))))
For the numbers above, I’ve found the force as 706.25, and the BHN of the key as 110.8. I’ve repeated the test for four more keys and measured them as 114.5, 103.9, 97.0, and 118.2 with an average of 108.9. In similar measurements, I would drop the minimum and maximum and take the average of the remaining samples, which is 109.7.
The following table is the result of my measurements. The results are surprising.
Brand
Average
Aquired date
Comment
Measurement [BHN]
Silca
Three keys
2018
CS206 Brass.
147.1
Silca
Three keys
2022
LD5R Steel.
222.8
JMA
Three keys
2018
Keys from Nigel Tolley.
135.4
Bauelemente
Three keys
2019
SSDeV Impressioning.
123.5
Abus
Three keys
2019
LockCon
133.4
Abus
Three keys
2020
Toool Inventory
135.8
Abus
Five keys
2022
LockCon Box A
127.4
Abus
Five keys
2022
LockCon Box B
108.9
Abus
Five keys
2022
LockCon Box C
131.5
Table of key measurements. Keys for Abus C83 with keyway similar to Y1.
The data revealed something interesting and confirmed a hunch. The hardness of steel keys is the highest, obviously. We see the brass alloy (nickel silver) have a range of values. There are also outliers, for example Box B, these keys are softer than keys acquired on the same day.
I’ve since played with both harnesses and can tell one hardness from another in impressioning. But only after I’ve switched from one hardness to another after a dozen opens, with the same hardness. After switching backwards and forwards, I can’t tell the difference in a blind test.
One final note, the kit comes with one reference bar that is consumable. We have about a hundred measurements in them. I have not found replacement bars, yet. But I believe we can use a similar shaped bar of steel, which is then calibrated with the reference bar before use. This will reduce accuracy, but can be accounted for if the measurements are comparative.
Thanks for taking your time to read about measuring hardness of keys. If you have a professional (Brinell) hardness measurement tool, and want to help out, let’s swap keys and compare notes. I’m always open to learn.
Posted in Keys, Impressioning | Comments Off on Quantifying the Brinell hardness of keys
Impressioning competition are all about opening the most locks in the least amount of time. Quite often, every second counts. As we have been playing the game for a couple of decades, it wouldn’t surprise you that the locks become harder, the times have been getting faster, and the openings more consistent.
Most of the players have reinvented their setup multiple times. I’ve seen 3D printed attributes for key marking, and often see the newest inventions. To keep it fair, however, you require sharing the idea before the competition, as to prevent an unfair advantage.
My first improvements have been to watch the masters work, and to copy what they do. Whereas my last improvements are much more subtle. I’ve, for example, reduced the distance between the lock, lamp, and table. And improved my handling process to save seconds here and there. I don’t believe we are done, either, as I’m trying to find a better way of placing my file when I’m not using it.
What is it? It’s a modified cylinder where the pins are replaced by sharp carbide rods. By pressing a key into the pins, the pin positions are marked on the key. Which, in turn, allows a key of all depths one to be made. The process takes a second, instead of preparing a blank with sand paper, a filling jig, or marking the positions one by one with a scribe. To be completely honest, it might not save me too much time, I just like it as a convenience tool.
I’ve built my first version after I impressioned my first lock, early 2018. It’s not the prettiest, but it worked for over a thousand keys. At that time, I impressioned a lock a day for every day in January. At UKlocksport forum, this is known as the January challenge. I’ve got some good stories about it, including a friend that just never stopped and has a streak in the thousands. (Please, Toni, remind me to write a blog about it.)
The key below shows the principle of operation. The scribe replacement tips scratch the surface of the key. For this one, the scratches are deeper than I like, but it shows the idea. You want a mark, but not too deep.
The current version, as shown in the pictures below, are from a small series production I’ve made for LockCon 2022. It was well received, and I’ve helped many of my friends with one of them. Making them commercially is very much not worth it. But if you want one, or the bits to make one, I might have some.
Please remember, even with all the impressioning gadgets, it’s not going to make a difference if you didn’t put in the hours. Consistency is key.
Pictures are copyright CCBY4.0 Jan-Willem Markus @ Blackbag.
At LockCon we ran the Impressioning competition on the usual C83 locks. (Abus, Thanks for sponsoring!) For the first round everyone has 1h to attempt the keyed a like locks. 12 people opened the locks in 20 minutes, this time. The best six went to the A Final, the subsequent six to the B Final.
In due time, we expect to publish a report on the key bittings, pins, and the times for each lock.
First place in the competition won a custom engraved Abloy Classic lockpick by Jaakko, and a Sparrows voucher of €100. Second place won a Multipick Artimis electropick. The third place won a set of Multipick Elite 27 lockpickset. All winners got a trophy, and a custom engraved PACLOCK, and an M&C pinning mat.
Congrats to the winners!
Jos opened 4 locks and got 1st placeTorsten opened 3 locks and got 2nd placeLasse opened one lock and got 3rd placeResults A FinalResults B Final
Eurocylinders have a standard form factor, but they come in different sizes. In the middle is the cam and the screw to attach the cylinder to the door. Measuring the lengths from the center of the cam to both ends gives you the length, for instance, 30/30 is a popular size. This means both ends are 30mm or 3cm for a total length of 6cm.
Although sizes of 30mm and 35mm (or combinations with 10mm for half cylinders) are pretty normal, there’s quite a variation in lengths, especially if you go to Belgium for instance.
A 45/55 cylinder
Very long ones such as the 45/55 above, are quite rare. Ones shorter than 30 are also rare. I had come across a 25/25 once, but a while ago, my favourite locksmith from Oostende (Birger) gave me a 20/20 cylinder.
A 20/20 cylinder
It did not come with a key. The cylinder only has one pin! This means that any key that fits the keyway can be used to open it: just insert the slope of the key just far enough to push the pin to the shear line.
By not inserting the key fully, we can pick the one pin
The cylinder did not come with a key, so I used impressioning to make one.
Lishi 2-in-1 have been around for a long time, both for automotive and more recently for pin tumbler locks. Sadly, these tools are quite costly as they are keyway specific. Furthermore, this type of tool can’t be made for some locks as the keyways are too tight. Or so I thought, as of writing there are several 2-in-1 for sale for the paracentric Yale keyway. As I was intrigued, I’ve bought an off brand 2-in1 for CISA. In testing the tool, I’ve found various limitations that might impact the usefulness of this tool.
Let’s start from the beginning, Lishi is the brand name of a series of lockpicking tools designed and made by Zhi Qin Li. The Lishi company split up and Zhi Qin Li still sells his 2-in-1 under the brand Original Lishi, while another company sells them under the brand Genuine Lishi.
Original Lishi sells a variety of tools, the one generally referred to as a Lishi is a 2-in-1 lockpick that both applies a turning force and a tool for picking individual elements. The tool can also be used to decode the lock once the lock is open, and a key can be cut in the field with another of Li’s tools.
Lishi for the Schlage SC4 keyway.
So, what does a Lishi 2-in-1 lockpick do? The tool consists of two parts; the body that is used as a turning tool and the thin feeler that’s used as a lockpick. This in itself would not be too useful, however, the body has a chart of where the lockpick is in the lock. You move the pointer to the desired element, indicated by the vertical lines, and push down lightly on the pointer. This in turn moves the lockpick, pushing down on the element in the lock. You can feel if the element is binding or not. And just as lockpicking, you go through the lock, pin by pin, and feel for the binders. Then you set each binder and search for the next one, until all elements are set. Click on one, click on three… Open!
From y2k these tools have been available for automotive locks as the combination of open keyways, many wafers, and typically low tolerances work very well for this tool. 2015 was the year 2-in-1 picks became available for pin tumbler lock for the USA market. (Schlage, Kwikset, and Master). Most of these locks have wide keyways, low tolerance, and very few security pins.
I’ve played with a few of these tools, but didn’t find them too useful. I’m not a locksmith, not in the USA. For me, they would be mostly a novelty. But the pick I’m about to show can be a game changer as it targets European locks I’m familiar with.
In December, I was notified a seller on AliExpress sells 2-in-1 (not a Lishi!) for the paracentric Yale keyway. The consensus under lockpickers is that this tool could not exist, because the keyway is too tight and has no straight access to the pins. I was curious enough to fork over €50, and bought one for CISA as it’s very close if not identical to the Abus C83, the lock we use for impressioning championships.
The seller is quite open about the tool’s limitations and wrote on the lever “80% coverage. Without pin 8 or 9”. While this sounds like it’ll open 80% of locks, but it doesn’t seem to be the whole story, as we will find out. The biggest concern with a tool that works on a subsection of locks is if the user can detect the tool does not work, instead of user error or lack of skill. I suspect so, but it will be far from easy. In short, a lock will not work with one or more cuts deeper than a 7 and therefore this pin will always be overset and this you can detect.
Small sub section of factory cut Abus C83 keys, I’ve a modest collection of them.
As I was curious about the 80% claim, I’ve spent an evening measuring my Abus C83 keys. While these are not CISA, they are close, and I happen to have a modest collection of these keys. 92 out of 283 of the measured keys have no cuts deeper than 5.5mm, the size of the tool. This means the tool will only work on 30% of my Abus C83. This is consistent with a statistics sanity check. For this, we assume every lock has a uniform distribution of cuts, ignoring MACS. This came to be (7/9)^5 = 28.4%.
I’m considering this 30% an upper bound, as Abus C83 and CISA aren’t shipped with standard pins. The old locks are shipped with mostly spool pins, and the new ones have serrated, spool, and T-pin key pins and the same for the drivers.
Abus C83 old style vs new style pins.
Besides the theoretical usability and security pins, what other flaws would make this tool suboptimal? The picking tip snags while moving from pin to pin. Furthermore, picking in the counterclockwise direction binds the picking tip, and it makes it difficult to differentiate between a binding pin and a binding picking tip.
Randomly pinned lock with standard pins, decoded to 52452.
Let’s wrap it up, this tool is sold at €50 and promises quite a lot. However, theoretical, it will only open 30% of all the locks it was designed for. Furthermore, the limitations of security pins and rotation direction will limit the functionality even more. A practiced lockpicker might be-able to overcome some limitations, or detect the tool will not work. A tool that only opens a very small subset of locks is not a very useful tool, and I can’t recommend it to pick these locks. However, as new pickers always struggle to find the binders, and this tool enables them to actually ‘see’ what they are doing, it could be a game changer for teaching.
