It is not always easy of being the president of a locksport organisation. I am not complaining, but it requires a lot of skills to pull it off. Take for instance the location for our bi-weekly meetings. In Eindhoven they have it covered well. Nice meeting rooms above a great cafe in the center, and they do not even have to pay rent (as long as everybody buys their drinks at the bar).

So I was happy when last year we made a similar deal with restaurant/cafe 1900 in the east of Amsterdam. We would hold out bi-weekly meetings there and they would not charge us rent for the meeting-room as long as we ordered our drinks at the bar. Of course we realized that if there was a commercial party that wanted to rent the room when it is reserved for us, the party that pays goes first. But we did manage to agree a term of two weeks notice, and if the commercial party wanted the room less then one week before the meeting we would still get it anyway (still for free).

Unfortunately ‘1900’ has a new owner and the policy changed (without notification). So when 15 people showed up for a meeting we found the room was rented to a group that was having dinner there. Not nice, especially since I went there in the morning to check if the room was reserved for us and all was still ok. And I am not even talking about the fact some Toool members travel more 100 Km to be there.

A meeting with the new owner did not went well. “You get what you pay for, and if someone wants to rent the room and pay they will always get priority over Toool”. No matter if your people have dinner before the meetings, and no matter if the previous owner made an agreement with you….

Now, I do understand that running a business in these times is not easy, so without much remorse I went out to find a new location. Thanks to Jean-Juc we found it. It is a truly amazing large basement with nice tables and chairs under a traditional Amsterdam cafe. What I mean by traditional Amsterdam cafe … you just have to see it to believe it 😉 But the atmosphere is real nice and the people seemed very friendly when I visited it.

I hope the Amsterdam Toool members will be as enthusiastic as I am when we meet there this Wednesday.

The address: Cafe ‘t Knelpunt
Haarlemmermeerstraat 159HS
1058JZ Amsterdam
Nederland (Noord-Holland)

See you there!

If there is one thing I have learned in life it is that you have to make investments to get anywhere. Whether it is time and practice to get good at lockpicking, or investing time and money to fly to international events like Aloa and other places, at the end it always pays off. Maybe not always in hard cash, but most of the time you make new friends and learn new techniques this way.

It seems more people understand you have to invest time and money. When ever we organize an event like LockCon or the Dutch Open, we receive lots of requests from people that want to participate. And normally we have to disappoint quite some people as there just is not enough room and staff to keep control.

This year is different as there will be no LockCon in Sneek. Instead of organizing our annual ‘semi-closed’ event, this year all our energy will be put in a ‘fully open’ lockpick village (LockCon village?) at the HAR2009 event (August 13-16 in Vierhouten, NL). This is where the ‘Dutch Open’ lockpick games will take place. The name ‘Dutch Open’ can be a little misleading as they are in fact the most international lockpick games on the planet. And at HAR we hope to get participants from all over the globe to battle for the title in the lockpick championships, impressioning games and a safe-combination lock manipulation contest. And it is your chance to participate in the games or see the action in real life!

Needless to say there will be lock-related presentations. For instance, Jord Knaap, Han and I will be giving a presentation called: “bypassing electronic and electro mechanical locks”. And we will try hard to get more lock related presentations at HAR. Currently there is a ‘call for papers’, so if you want to present something submit there asap.

To run a high quality lockpick village is a serious task. Besides the many championships there will be a sportshop and ’round the clock’ workshops and sessions. These workshops range from the very basics to highly advanced. And we could not do all this without the help of our German friends of SSDeV. They traditionally have a big influence on the village as they supply many of the hard working staff and bring a big part of the hardware/sport shop. But hopefully this time we will get some support from Toool.US (special HAR2009 pickset?) and maybe from other locksport organizations (drop me a mail if you want to help/participate).

If you are into locks and lockpicking, HAR2009 is the place to be!

I know HAR is still ‘far away’, but I do urge you to buy your ticket(s) now! The HAR organization needs your money, and ordering a ticket before February 29th saves you 100 euro!

ACT NOW!

And we like to invest a little too. Toool will sponsor the first twenty-five people that buy a ticket using the word ‘freepicks’ at the coupon code field with an original ‘last hope credit card pickset’ (and 5 euro additional discount)!

See you at HAR!

I hope you enjoyed the holidays and are ready for a nice 2009! … I know I am!

There will be a post about the 2009 year planning (and a little looking back on 2008) on Sunday. So my last years resolution will still be valid: I will keep blogging at least once a week on Sundays …

Sure, there is a lot of things to blog about. Recently there was the study on copying keys by simply using a picture of someone’s keyring (something I warned you for some time ago), or even more recent a somewhat secure safe made from Lego.

Truth of the matter is I am currently very busy preparing a multi-day bump course for a locksmith organisation from a different country. For weeks I have been studying new locks. It is very exciting to learn about new locks, and to find out most of them still can be defeated by the bumpkey. This research is something I could have easily filled a few blogpostings with, but I simply do not have the time to do so (as detailed as I would like to).

So I decided to take a short break, and start blogging again from January 1, 2009 (5 weeks from now …). This will give me some time to get my act together and maybe pre-process some nice blogpostings to give you an interesting story on a regular base next year …

And who knows … maybe I will post something before January 1 if I can not resist the urge 😉

I really love the fact that more and more members of toool get involved to the point they single handedly can perform crucial tasks. In this case Jos Weyers took care of this year’s lockpick competition. And one of the things he did was photograph all locks in high detail (images at the bottom of this post) ….

For those unfamiliar with the Toool competition, here is a small explanation: the competition starts and ends at every LockCon/Dutch Open event. So in this case we just started a new competition. We start with inviting people to donate special and exotic locks, and make a selection of 26 of the most interesting ones. As soon as this selection is done, all locks will be photographed and a competition webpage is set up (link to 2008, work in progress). Now the fun starts: At every Toool meeting (in Amsterdam and Eindhoven), members can try to open these locks, and keep track of their own time! After each club evening the scores are collected and the webpage with the scores is updated. You will receive ten points for being the fastest to open a lock, the second best will get nine points etcetera etcetera till number ten who will receive one point. Number eleven to open the lock will not get any points… Now all points for all locks will be added up and the person with most point wins. I have won this competition multiple times, but since I was too busy learning other lock opening skills I neglected picking a bit and last year did not even made it into the top three.

I am not sure if I will join full force this year, or if my new lock opening passion will take all of my time.

What I do know is that there is a lot of manufacturers out there that keep an eye on this blog to see if their lock is mentioned. Here is the list of locks in this years competition (click on the name of the lock for a close up): chinese lock with pins from three sides, Mul-T-Lock MT5+, no name, Tesa 5-pin, Fixit, Iseo 5-pin, 2001 (Buva?), Iseo 6-pin dimple, Abus, Lips, Corbin, Nemef, Giha 2000, Medeco Bi-Axial 6 pin (with correct side-bar ’set key’), Nemef, Oxlock, Ikon sperr rippen, Unknown (from SSDeV), GTV, Winkhaus, Yale, AGB, BKS, UCEM (Spain), BKS and … a Gemini shield!

If the new site is up where we keep track of times I will post the address here so you can keep track of our progress ….

One of this year’s highlights for me was winning the impressioning championships at LockCon. I promise this will be the last posting about this topic, and the only reason to bring it up again is because SSDeV president Steffen Wernéry kept his promise: he edited (and made publicly available) a high quality video about the impressioning games in Sneek.

In this video you can see what it looks like when someone files a key to a lock without knowing what the original key looks like, and create a working key (from scratch) to a lock in minutes. For those who do not know how lock impressioning works here is a quick explanation: a blank key is inserted into the lock, and turning pressure is applied. This turning pressure creates pins to bind into the lock. By wiggling the key up and down when it’s under this turning pressure, the binding pins will make a small scratch into the blank. Once the scratches are identified, a few strokes with a fine file will take away some metal on the key, causing the pins to drop a little deeper into the key. The interesting thing is that pins will stop making marks/scratches when they are at the correct position. The process of twisting and filing is repeated until the pins no longer leave marks (and the lock opens).

Currently two versions of the video are available: one in Quicktime MP4 (230 MB) and one in Windows Media format (320 MB).

Looking back at the video I can only smile. I was under quite some pressure, and I did get a little nervous by the camera at first. Fortunately I could block that feeling quite fast and focus on opening the lock. Hearing me yell ‘open!’ on the video still gets a grin on my face.

I would like to thank Steffen for his hard work of editing the video and make it available in such short time frame. And I can only hope you enjoy the video as much as I do. Hopefully it will get you interested in learning about opening locks this way or give you an idea what impressioning is about and what our games look like ….

A little while ago I received some fancy looking opening tools. And normally when someone presents me an opening tool, I just grab one locks from my personal collection to try it out. But in this case I am sure I don’t have the right locks for the tool. And to make things worse, Han Fey also does not have an idea what kind of locks these are used for…

I must admit the tools look nice, and it is a real pity I do not have the locks that come with it to try them out. Too bad the manual does not mean much to me as my Chinese is still a little rusty …. So I can only guess how they work.

Personally I think it is some sort of ‘decoder pick’. Turning the knob at the end of the tool moves a finger/lifter at the tip of the tool, and with it you can set (or feel) individual pins. The neat thing about this tool is that it’s also a ‘set up key’. Inserting small ‘break away key parts’ on the side of the blade will lift the pin to a specific position and keep it there. And by changing the inserts you can change the depth of this (set up) key. Most likely the idea is to use the included magnetic contact microphone to hear if a pin is under pressure or can move freely. After some fiddling around you will end up with a working key.

All in all an intriguing tool, and I can’t wait to get my hands on one of those locks. If I ever do, I promise to shoot some video and share that here …

* Update 7-11: I send the tool to one of my loyal readers who has a couple of these locks. After playing around with the tool he will send it back including a lock. So I guess a video will show up here some day …

I am back from a hectic week of Dubai and still struggling to get back on track. And it is not easy as there still is a lot of work to do. So please forgive me for not writing a complete report about LockCon. I am hoping maybe Schuyler will write a detailed article for NDE magazine about the event. For now I would like to cover the games played in Sneek and link to two of Marc Tobias his articles.

For the ‘Dutch Open’ lockpick competition Han and I made a last minute decision to use Medeco bi-axial locks in the finals. We did give the contestants a 100% correct cut ‘set key’ for these locks (technically speaking: no ‘half steps’ on the angled cuts). I think before this weekend, none of the finalists had ever picked a Medeco lock by using the ‘set key method’ to neutralize the sidebar before. Tobias Bluzmanis even gave some advise during the finals, and with success. The fastest opening time was 23 seconds. Marc Tobias wrote a nice piece about the finals, and even included some video clips. So check out Marc’s ‘the sidebar’ blog and his Cnet article for details (really worth reading). Bottom line of the Dutch Open 2008 is: ‘Master of the Universe’ Dr. Manfred Bölker won, followed by Dr. Torsten Quast. André Matuschek had a good weekend scoring a third place in both the lockpicking and impressioning games. And it’s obvious German SSDeV members are still dominating this game … just look at this ‘top seven’ list to see what I mean…

One game that did not turn out well was the safe combination manipulation games. In total nine people tried to open the same Sargent and Greenleaf 6730 lock in two hours time, but none of them succeeded. So the nice awards we had made are now going into the dustbin. Or maybe we will re-use them for next year … if we decide to keep trying at this game at all. Time will tell …

No matter how much time we plan for the weekend, there never is enough time to do a serious ceremony to honor the winners of the games. This year was not exception, and I really do not like it. But it somehow seems to be part of the event. We did find some time however to celebrate the winners of the Toool competition 2007/2008. It is the first year I did not made it into the top three, but then again it was purely a matter of not spending enough time on it. But it is good to see Walter Belgers was given a pretty hard time to win this edition of the competition again. Jos Weyers was runner up (like last year) and Mike Bestebroer was entering the top three for the first time. Congratulations all!

Hopefully I will have time to write up on some of the excellent presentations that were held in Sneek and other exciting things that happened there …

You are used to me publishing something on this weblog every sunday (or when I am busy on Monday). Well … don’t worry, I will keep that up. But las weekend was a true demolition derby, and on sunday I was fully wrecked, I just could not write sooner. And I am still recovering (and very busy with my daytime job as I will fly to Dubai on Friday for a trade show).

First of all I would like to thank all that attended and helped out at LockCon! As always it was quite the experience and we did mange to make it the best Sneek event ever. And I am already wondering what we can offer next year….

For me the ultimate LockCon experience was the impressioning championships on Saturday evening. You might remember six weeks ago I finally managed to become ‘Meister’ at the German games in Cologne. And now my German friends were out for revenge (in a very sporty manner). SSDeV president Steffen Wernéry prepared packages filled with fifty blanks and practice locks, and send them out to the members that could help stop the Dutch invasion. The message to the members was clear: bring back the title to Germany! On top of that he offered the SSDeV member that would beat me and my record time (5:13 minutes) a rare and beautiful watch made by Abus in the shape of a discus lock. All this caused the games in Sneek to be the one with most participants ever (around 35?). And all the big names were there trying to win the title and watch.

As I wrote before, I did not lose any sleep over all this. The sleep I lost was about the many other worries as the event needed my full attention to bring it to a happy end. So I did not get a chance to practice impressioning at all and just had to rely on my basic skills. The only thing I could do was arrange an hour orso in private just before the games to do some sort of warming up (opening a few locks).

To keep a long story short: I won again! And again it was the first time ever a ‘non-German’ won a locksport game in the Netherlands (yes, that is a shame ;). In 5:32 I managed to open the lock. Second was lockpick legend Arthur Meister in six minutes and a little bit. The third person was André Matuschek in little over 15 minutes something. Fourth was Dr. Manfred Bölker and fifth was Eric Schmiedl (toool.US). Please excuse me for not having the exact times and people opening the lock present, but things have been pretty hectic here and I can’t find the notes I made …

What was really special is Steffen Wernéry showed the ultimate proof of true sportsmanship: He was kind enough to offer me my own bounty and gave me the Abus watch at the closing ceremonies on Sunday evening. A very nice gesture that I appreciate a lot! And since I like a little challenge, I am offering the watch myself now to the person who manages to win a game and break the speed record in one of the two 2009 impressioning games. To be continued …

And I apologize for being selfish and just write about the impressioning games for now. I will soon try to write a follow up on the unforgettable LockCon event, and report about the many presentation and Dutch Open lockpick games (Medeco locks in the finals). And Steffen Wernéry shot some spectacular video of the impressioning games. It will take him some time to edit it, but I am looking very forward to seeing and sharing it ….

But for now I just need to catch up lots of sleep ….

Pffftttt …. just a few days till the Essen Security show and LockCon, and I am already wasted. Lots of things are going right. And we got more support in organizing this event then ever before, but unfortunately there are also some things that don’t go right:

The worst one that gives me a small headache: the privileges we used to have at the hostel are melting away. A new and more expensive building, and new management that does not know us make life a little difficult. But we will all do our best to make the best of it.

Something else: St.John just mailed me about the Lab and Fee not in time for LockCon. He mailed: “The tools are now being made but unfortunately they won’t be ready for Sneek. I really tried my best but finding the right guys with the right machines took a bit of time. The tool we have designed is a pin and cam with changeable tips so that it can be used for quite a few different locks. Fingers crossed I will have a sample for Sneek (they are making the sample now and I have to ok it before the CNC production run), it should arrive any day this week. Finished items will likely arrive within the next 2-3 weeks. If you want I will send them out to the people who do the class as soon as I get them. This is the best I can do but if you think it is acceptable I think the people will be very happy as the design is very nice.”

Not to mention that for the last 5 hours orso, I have been trying to edit the video of the impression championships in Cologne. But somehow I run into black-magic voodoo bugs and can’t get the audio to be in sync. Very frustrating and I just made the decision to quit video-editing for now and just type this posting and share my feelings with you …

And about Lockcon: We will make the best of it, and I am convinced people will have a hell of a time! (as always …)

But personally I will be happy when it’s Sunday this time next week 😉