Archive for July, 2007

Aloa 2007 … here we come …

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Aloa 2007 Charlotte

Yesterday Han and I landed in Charlotte, North-Carolina. For me the plan is to visit the Aloa 2007 exhibition while Han is having a booth there.

I have already seen lots of familiar faces and had quite some interesting conversations. If there are nice new tools or other novelties I will make sure to report back here.

Stay tuned ….

European locksmiths turned upside down …

Friday, July 6th, 2007

brockhage bpg 15 european style pick gun for upside down picking

It took the lock-tool industry a couple of years to copy German Ssdev member Kurt Zuhlke’s invention. Kurt developed the reversible pick gun. His invention was mentioned in the bumpkey whitepaper we published at the beginning of 2005, and I have had many requests ever since from european locksmiths that wanted one.

The reason for that is so far all pick guns on the market were targeted to US locksmiths. In the US locks are mounted pins upward in the door while in europe it is the other way around and they are pointing downward.

The problem most european locksmiths have is that if they want to use a pickgun on a door, the handle of the door is in the way. That is because with a US model pickgun you have to keep the gun upside down to be able to use it.

But not anymore … now there is a solution! (for sale on the free market)

Brockhage has created a pickgun especially designed for the european market.
And it works! At home I managed to shoot open a nice range of locks, all in the upside down position.

downward picking gun

A friendly locksmith that has been bugging me for a ‘kurt Zuhlke edition’ for a loooong time was glad to try it out too. And he liked it, eventough he could open locks faster and more reliable with his own ‘us version gun’. Not so strange if you keep into consideration he used his old one on a daily basis for over twenty years …

* update 08/2007 There is some discussion about how well this gun actually works. Some German lockpickers (who’s comments I respect highly) do not like the gun and it’s design at all. They called it names I will not repeat as this site. On the other hand, two locksmiths who open doors on a daily basis have reported they do use with success when their conventional pickgun can’t make the angle.