Toool organises an ongoing competition that ends every year at LockCon. A box with locks travels to all meetings and members of Toool can have a go at them and Toool competition. Since you can really get to know the lock (you can try as often as you like), the opening times become very fast over the year.
The results of the competition were:
1.
Walter
266.5
2.
Jos
235.5
3.
Tom
204
4.
Decoder
198
5.
Rob
127
6.
Rolf
66
7.
Martin EHV
36
8.
J-W
32
9.
Christ
19
10.
Maykel
2
Here we see the winners, from left to right Tom, Walter and Jos:
Picture by Urs
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Results Toool NL championships
The newest of the competitions is the lever lock competition. This is really fast paced, four locks to be opened in each round, with just two minutes per lock. This is done in groups of four, the winners of each group go to the final. One group had no winners (no locks opened). The first rounds went as follows:
Round
Name
Lock 1
Lock 2
Lock 3
Lock 4
1
Nigel
1’28
1’59
–
–
Femurat
1’05
–
–
–
Torsten
–
–
–
–
Walter
–
–
–
–
2
Julian
0’43
0’56
–
–
Lars
1’09
0’58
–
–
Decoder
1’42
0’54
–
–
Cattani
1’28
–
–
–
3
Oli
1’32
0’51
1’58
–
Kilae
–
–
–
–
Dune
–
–
–
–
Zanella
–
–
–
–
4
Harry
0’23
0’47
1’59
–
Jaakko
1’39
–
–
–
R@y
–
–
–
–
Jascha
–
–
–
–
5
BenD
–
–
–
–
DG
–
–
–
–
Klepas
–
–
–
–
Topy
–
–
–
–
6
mkie
0’34
1’15
0’24
–
Morris
0’24
1’33
0’39
–
Marc
1’27
–
–
–
Tom
–
–
–
–
The finals were exiting, with the following end result:
#
Name
Lock 1
Lock 2
Lock 3
Lock 4
1.
Julian
1’07
1’32
1’20
1’52
0’56
2.
Oli
–
0’34
1’28
1’58
0’34
3.
Harry
–
1’37
1’24
–
1’22
4.
Nigel
–
–
–
–
1’50
5.
mkie
–
–
–
–
–
Here we see the winners, from left to right Harry, Julian and Oli:
Picture by Urs
Also many people participated in the impressioning championships. Given an Abus C83 cylinder and some blank keys, the goal was to make one of them into a working key as fast as possible. The first six would then proceed to the A-final, the second six to the B-final, to open another set of six locks.
The first round lasted an hour, but the first two times were under a minute!
The results of the first round:
1.
J-W
0’51
2.
Jos
0’59
3.
Manfred
1’11
4.
Oli
1’12
5.
Harry
1’32
6.
Morris
2’10
7.
Alex
2’34
8.
Holly
2’40
9.
Walter
3’03
10.
Django
3’38
11.
Jord
5’51
12.
Torsten
6’34
13.
Zahella
7’48
14.
Nigel
8’04
15.
RFGuy
9’46
16.
Marc
10’36
17.
R@y
14’08
18.
DG
15’43
19.
mkie
15’50
20.
Julian
22’31
21.
Hotaru
23’41
22.
Tom
28’05
23.
Matt B.
30’12
24.
mh
31’02
25.
Lars
44’45
26.
Martin.BE
26’28
27.
Jascha
47’42
Then the top-6 were to compete in the (A) final. The numbers 7 through 12 did the B-final. The results were as follows:
A FINAL
1
Jos
1’55
7’27
13’54
8’14
5’12
4’28
2
Manfred
7’17
5’45
7’06
–
2’42
5’40
3
Oli
–
–
2’53
8’14
3’14
11’28
4
J-W
10’38
3’51
12’02
12’02
–
–
5
Harry
6’16
–
4’58
6’45
–
–
6
Morris
–
–
11’02
11’57
–
6’42
B FINAL
7
Jord
7’46
2’55
–
3’57
–
7’35
8
Alex
7’56
11’06
5’05
–
6’42
–
9
Torsten
8’09
–
–
–
–
5’52
10
Walter
–
8’48
–
–
–
12’20
11
Django
–
–
–
–
–
6’08
12
Holly
–
–
6’21
–
–
–
Here we see the winners, from left to right: Oli, Manfred and Jos:
Picture by femurat
Picture by Dennis van Zuijlekom
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Results Impressioning championships
Quite a lot of people participated in the Lockpicking championships (the “Dutch Open”). We had 67 participants! Six groups were made where every person tried to open six locks. The best two would go on to the knock outs. Here are the results of that first round:
Winner
Runner-up
Table 1
Julian
Max
Table 2
Locknoob
Femurat
Table 3
Walter
Decoder
Table 4
Marc
Gorilla
Table 5
Torsten
Jos
Table 6
Catani
Jascha
In the first knock out round, each number one would compete one-on-one with a number two, leaving only six people:
Competitors
Winner
Julian – Femurat
Julian
Locknoob – Max
Max
Walter – Gorilla
Walter
Marc – Decoder
Decoder
Torsten – Jascha
Torsten
Catani – Jos
Jos
The next knock out round left three people:
Competitors
Winner
Julian – Walter
Julian
Max – Decoder
Decoder
Torsten – Jos
Torsten
Those three people went to the final round, having to open three high security locks:
CISA C3000
KALE KILLIT
ISEO F6
1. Decoder
–
–
1’13
2. Torsten
–
–
11’26
3. Julian
–
–
–
Here we see the winners, from left to right Julian, Decoder and Torsten:
Picture by femurat
Posted in LockCon | Comments Off on Results Lockpicking championships
LockCon 2018 was another success. For the second time at Kasteel De Berckt, for the first time completely sold out. We had a lot of repeat visitors of course, but also some newcomers. People from the US, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, Finland, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and possibly some countries I am forgetting now joined us for a three day event filled with lectures, workshops, competitions and of course networking (meeting new people over a beer, reconnecting with others, swapping locks and techniques).
The BBC was present to shoot some footage for an upcoming One Show.
I would like to thank our sponsors, who made the event possible. Abus sponsored all the C83 cylinders and the brass keyblanks used in the impressioning competition. They certainly know what they are doing, the bitting was perfect for the game. Multipick and Sparrows Lockpicks gave away some fantastic prizes for all of the winners. They both have some interesting new gear, be sure to take a look. Paclock made wonderful engraved padlocks for all the winners, in different colours. M&C, Tokoz and EVVA sponsored locks as prizes and for the competition. Spoox sponsored picks and pick holders. Thanks!
We are busy with the preparations for LockCon 2018, taking place September 28-30 in Baarlo, Netherlands. We are almost sold out (i.e. all the rooms at the venue being occupied). There are a few left, prefeably for people sharing rooms. There is also the option to have tents or RV’s on the premises, but we would rather stick to regular rooms.
The BBC will be present to do some filming. We will have championships in lockpicking, lever lockping and impressioning. And of course a full program with lectures and workshops.
At the regular Toool meeting in Eindhoven, we decided to spend the evening improving our skills in impressioning. We filed some keys, exchanges some tips and generally learned a lot.
Posted in Impressioning | Comments Off on Impressioning
A while ago, we had the Dutch national TV at one of our meetings. A guy named ‘Klaas’ makes a show in which he says he can do anything. His challenge this time: to crack a safe. The show consists of three parts. In the first, Klaas meets up with Jos to learn lockpicking, only to find out it is a bit hard to do quickly. Then, he tries the brute force method, which is also not very practical. In the end, he resorts to a robo-dialler and manages to open the safe.
You can watch the video here, but the item is in Dutch (auto-translate is possible, but won’t work wonders):
Posted in General | Comments Off on Toool on Dutch TV
We pulled it off: we organized yet another very succesful LockCon! The ninth already. Because the hotel we went to last year was no longer available, we went to a new location: a real castle.
Even though we had nice surroundings, great campfires and good beer, it was of course all about meeting others interested in locks! Many new friends were made, thanks to the excellent atmosphere and the small size of the conference (100 people at most, this time from at least 10 different countries).
We also held the Dutch Open competitions in lockpicking, impressioning and lever lock picking. We were helped by many companies who sponsored. We say thank you to Abus, sponsored all the impressioning locks and keys (they did a great job with well-adjusted key bittings), DOM who sponsored some locks for the picking finals and the sponsors of some great prizes: Sparrows lockpicks (money vouchers), Pacific Lock (engraved locks), Multipick (electropicks and picksets), Tokoz (locks) and EVVA (marketing materials).
The winners are: for lockpicking: Julian (1st), Decoder (2nd) and Martin (3rd). For impressioning: Jos (1st), Oli (2nd) and Manfred (3rd). For the Toool NL competition: Walter (1st), Decoder (2nd) and Jos (3rd). For lever lock picking: Tomás (1st), Julian (2nd) and Harry (3rd). Congratulations!
And, there were many talks. We have had a great number of really impressive talks over the years, but have never published any of them. LockCon provides a secure setting where people can speak openly, even about new lock designs for instance. But, this year was a little bit special. We had an invited speaker, Tim Jenkin, who, for the first time, spoke exclusively about how he, as a political prisoner in 1970s South Africa, managed to escape. You can watch the whole video online:
An extraordinary story!
Update: I just finished adding closed captions in English. You can try autotranslate to get subtitles in any language you like. It was a huge amount of work, but I feel this story is important enough to share with many people.
