When every second counts: formula 1 impressioning tool

impressioning speed up tool

Our German friends from SSDeV decided to change the rules of the impressioning games. Instead of the fastest time on one lock, now more locks need to be opened and the person opening the most locks in the least amount of time wins. In the comments of this Hackaday post Jos explains the exact rules:

“First round everybody gets a keyed alike lock (so same amount of work) this round takes an hour. The six fastest go to the finals: during six rounds (20 min. each) all the contenders open one lock, which then gets swapped. So all finalists open the same 6 locks. The used keys are put in closed boxes so there is no way you know the key is supposed to look like.”

And with opening times of less then a minute these games are more and more looking like formula 1 pit stops. And so people are trying to come up with ideas and tools to shave off a few seconds left or right. The expert on the field of impressioning is Oliver Diederichsen. It was his research and book that really got us all started at this. And he came up with a new tool. It is a modified euro-profile cylinder that contains five sharp solid pins that will scratch the blank at the position the pins will make contact with it. Once these marks are on the blank, it is just a matter of filing them down to code 1-1-1-1-1 and start impressioning.

Before and after

As Oliver is one of the most fair people I know, he shared the design and allowed others to copy it for future games. So Jord Knaap made a nice handle that contains a half euro profile with the steel pins. And the euro-profile core in Jord’s tool is interchangeable. At the back of the tool there is a small hole that will allow you to push out the cylinder and change it for another brand.

To come back to the games: they were won by good old Atrhur Meister, followed by Oliver Diederichsen and Jos Weyers. Congratulations guys. Looking forward to the impressioning games at Lockcon in a couple of months …

the champs

10 Responses to “When every second counts: formula 1 impressioning tool”

  1. Jos Weyers says:

    And it works brilliantly!

  2. Elphreaker says:

    Nice concept! I understand you use the lock inside that aluminium cylinder, isnt it a bit unconfortable to do impressioning holding it with your hand? Or are you supposed to hold that external cylinder on your vice?

  3. Raf says:

    Can we see more the tool pls?

  4. Jos Weyers says:

    @Elphreaker:
    nope, you just use it once during an impression session. Namely before the first file actions. So you don’t impression the lock in the picture, yuo just use it to get the initial scatch marks. After that you continue with the lock in the vice.

    So the tool is only used for a split second. It takes about four seconds off my normal openingtimes. (which is quite a lot)

    @Raf: which side do you want to see?

  5. Raf says:

    I saw that Jos is using a plug to mark the pins in the London’s meeting but i dont understand how Jord tool is working?

    BTW Jos opened 5 locks in 14 mints that’s amazning.

  6. jos weyers says:

    Jord’s tool does exactly the same as what i use the filed-off plug for. I don’t it any more as the new tool makes about the same marks in an instance (which gains me about four seconds)

  7. Elphreaker says:

    @Jos Weyers

    LOL, I totally missed the point of it… Anyhow, good idea! A friend of mine, in our forum (lockpickingsportccs.com), made a similar tool, that was designed initially to mark locks to be cut into “cutaways”.

    http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/7184/p5240001r.jpg (Thanks to “spool” from LPSCCS)

  8. einstein says:

    nice tool Elphreaker, lock dangerous 🙂

    • Tom Swango says:

      Can anyone tell me the make and model of the magnified desk lamp Joe Weyer uses in competition

      • Walter says:

        I have a similar one, somebody from SSDeV once bought a bunch of them somewhere. They’re probably made in China, there is no brand name on them (at least not on mine).