Last weeks/months I did spend a lot of time impressioning locks. I try to open at least one lock per day with this tecnique. And most of the time I succeed in that, and it is giving me quite a confident feeling.

But when I tried to open a relatively simple abus 5 pin cylinder that was mounted in a door, on a rainy day in the middle of the night, this confidence was nowhere to be found. Before you ask ‘why was Barry in the middle of the night trying to open a lock?’ … it was because the owner lost his key. To make a long story short, trying to open that lock became a disaster. And there is no one to blame but myself, except maybe the bad lighting conditions on the scene. I just could not see the marks.

So I went search for better light sources that could be used for impressioning ‘in the field’. A few weeks before the disastrous Abus adventure, someone pointed me out that a company called MBA (in the US) sold a special impressioning magnifier. At first I did not think much of it. After all, how good a tool can it be for just $29 US? And using the Velleman loupe on my desk I never had a real reason to look for better light and view anyway.

But now I needed something portable and started my search for the perfect ‘in the field’ impressioning aid. I tried out lots of lights and magnifiers. But not one could come close to the superb Velleman magnifier with it’s build in TL tube. The problem with all other light sources is that when you shine focused light on a blank you get blinded by the reflections. And all magnifiers with build in light I tested had some sort of focused spotbeam that was way too intense.

At around the same time Oli pointed out an aid used for examining gems. It is a simple detachable unit that fits a maglite flashlight. And inside is a filter to diffuse the light and a prism to create a nice indirect effect when looking at the object. The interesting thing is it showed great similarities to the MBA unit I ordered.

I guess there are the same, especially when I finally received them in the mail and could take a close look. I suspect MBA did modify the unit a bit to make it better suitable for examining long metal objects.

I must say I like the tool a lot. Light on the blank is the best I have seen so far for a portable unit. And the magnification of 10X is also very helpful.

Still there are some minor disadvantages. One of them is the short range where the blank is ‘in focus’ when looking trough the magnifier. It seems to require some skill to keep the blank at the right distance. But maybe this will change if you practise some with it. Another small disadvantage is that when you see marks on the blank they disappear from the naked eye when you remove the blank from the tool. This leaves you with the question where on the blanks the marks are you could see so clearly under the light. Adding some marks on the side of the blank (using a marker or make some scratch marks) will solve that problem. You only have to count at around what mark on the side of the blank you have to start filing.

Before I will attempt to open doors in the field again I will make very sure to be fully confident with this tool. And even tough I like this tool, the search for the ideal light is still on ….

‘When every second counts’ is the slogan of our national emergency phone number 112.

And I have seen it a couple of times yesterday, looking at banners when I visited the last day of the IVIC show in Rosmalen.

The IVIC is a show where police, fire brigade and other public services give demonstrations and let the public see what kind of equipment they have and what they are capable of.

And as you can see on the picture above, a standard fire brigade vehicle is also equipped to open doors and enter buildings quickly. But since there is no time to be subtle and because ‘every second counts’ these tools are pretty straight forward.

And there was a lot more to see. There were many demonstrations, and I was most impressed by a set of hydraulic cutters and spreaders. Our fire brigades use these in case of severe car crashes. They will simply cut a car to shreds to free people that are caught inside a car wreck.

What really caught my eye was a robot that is used to examine (and if necessary detonate) explosives. This remote controlled robot is the eyes of the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal).

Pretty cool stuff …I hope it’s obvious I had a good time ….

He started as a lock collector, but more and more Han Fey is asked by the industry to shed his light on development issues and review their design. And write articles to give his honest view on their products.

Han just finished an in depth document on the Robotic Key System. As always a masterpiece, filled with many technical bits of information you will find nowhere else.

The Robotic Key System is an interesting mixture of techniques. It combines the reliable mechanical disc lock system with some pretty clever electronics to align the discs and dial the correct combination. It brings key management to a completely new level.

Some people will recognize this system as the one we tested and looked at at the Dutch Open 2006 in Sneek. Some video is still available online on this site about this intriguing lock.

For those of you in the lock industry that read my weblog: Here is a nice opportunity!

The inventors of this lockingsystem, Stantonconcepts.us, is looking for a “strategic partner” to turn this wonderful idea into a commercial success…

Read all technical details on: http://toool.nl/RKS-principle.pdf (PDF, 3 MB)

Wednesday a delegation of the finest Toool members visited the Safety & Security 2007 exhibition in Amsterdam. Besides the usual lock manufacturers there was not a lot of news.

One thing did caught my eye … secure suitcases and briefcases.

As you might know I am a big fan of clever inventions and good design work. And this range of cases seemed to have both.

I spoke with the inventor, Mr. Graham Sharp, for a long time. He told me a lot about the cases and got me really enthusiastic about them.

The design is clever. Lightweight trough use of a special aluminum alloy, and a 6 millimeter thick steel cable that keeps the case in place in your hotel room or car trunk.

Also clever is the use of the extremely hard to bypass ASSA desmo lock, witch key can only be removed when it is in the locked position.

The briefcase model is secured against prying it open with a screwdriver by using a high latch that falls into a deep groove at the sides of the case. Maybe not to clear to see on these images, but very well designed.

These products are certainly high on my wish list for carrying my laptop around or when traveling abroad. Too bad I was not around on the last day of the fair to try buy the demo models (for a special price of course) ….

But then again, they were pretty lightweight so I do not think Mr Sharp had a hard time carrying them back to the UK ….

And for our Dutch readers: Het FMC was ook ter plaatse op de beurs en wierp een zeer kritische blik op een nieuwe KPN dienst.

Some people have got their hearts in the right place. Take for
instance Stefan Gottlieb and Dieter Ade from Germany. They took the
time and effort to translate Han Fey’s Abloy Protec article from
English to German.

Quite an achievement if you realize it’s a rather technical document,
meaning a small translation error can make a big difference.

The article can be found on http://toool.nl/AbloyProtecTeil3.pdf (2 MB)

I wonder if with this translation they are getting up to steam to do
Han’s other seven articles, or if it was a ‘once but never again’ job ….

Anyway, great job guys, keep up the good work!

Yes, we have set a record. We now know the exact dates for the Dutch
Open 2007, months in advance.

We are seriously thinking about two championships this year. A
lockpick contest that will take place on Saturday November 24, and an
impressioning championship. For the impressioning championship we will
have to find a timeslot. This will be no problem since the
impressioning championship will only take 20 minutes. There is no need
for several rounds of games before the finals, it is a simple matter
of opening the lock before the others do to become the champion.

Needless to say it will be a fun time as always, filled with many
spectacular presentations and demonstrations. The championships will
be available for everyone, the presentations and demonstrations will
be for toool and ssdev members only. Of course there will be more info
on the Dutch Open 2007 soon, but for now you can start to make
reservations 😉

If you want to give a presentation, or have something else you think
could be interesting to show/do at the Dutch Open 2007 … please let
us know!

To be continued …

But I just don’t blog about it for now. This has got nothing to do
with you, I like sharing information. Maybe it’s a case of ‘writers
block’? Or maybe I am not too motivated to type much when temperatures
are over 20 degrees Celsius?

A short update on some of the topics on this blog:

We did not test the anti-bump grease yet. I will do it one of these
days, but it’s not high on my priority list for the moment. And two
samples is not nearly enough to do a real test with multiple locks.

And about the pandora box: Jos found a copy of the opening
instructions. We did probe the lock and door with shims, and think it
is not fully locked. So if our assumption is correct we only need to
bypass one lock. We will give it another try on May 9.

Over the years Han Fey and myself have seen many solutions to the
bumping problem. Sometimes the lock companies engineers came up with a
good solution, sometimes they failed miserably.

I am not sure in what category ‘pickbuster’ belongs. Looking online
and on their website, their solution sounds a little bit too good to be true :

Lock Bumping – The Solution

Almore Ltd has developed a radical solution to this threat, which
renders any existing cylinder far less susceptible to this Method Of
Entry. This is done without replacement, leaving the existing cylinder
and keys in place whilst acting to greatly increase the effort
required to access the cylinder.

Applied in a solvent carrier, PICKBUSTER is non–toxic and provides
excellent long term corrosion resistance. A single application will
provide protection for the life of the cylinder.
—

Today I have received two ‘shot’ of pickbuster and will give it a try
over the weekend. Needless to say I will shoot some video of the test…

I am glad to see so many people responded to my request for information about
the ‘pandora box’. The best lead was came by Jason Jones. He found a similar box
for sale on antiqenet.com … Price : $17,500.00 USD!

There is a lot of info on the antiquenet site about it:

Description: A rare French antique iron clad three key strong box. Makers mark Brevete – Magaud de Charf – Marseille Oak frame, clad with iron plates and thicker 2-3 mm iron strap reinforcements. The round bosses are fasteners, large steel rivets found on all sides. The interior has iron sheeting formed to cover the frame. Oak sorting shelves finish the inside. – All three keys, latches and mechanicals fully operational. Opening instructions documented and illustrated.

Antique Decorative Objects
Antique Decorative Items
Decorative Antiques
See our store in Denver.
Status: Sold Reference#: DF7_101
Condition: fine Year: 17th century
Country: France
Height: 39 in. (99.06 cm) Depth: 20.5 in. (52.07 cm)
Width: 28.25 in. (71.75 cm)

The nice thing about the antiquenet.com add is it contains some very high detailed
images of the keys. Enough to give us an idea what to expect and what it is going
to take to open it. The next challenge is to find blanks this size to modify ….

Maybe we will see the box in real life this wednesday. To be continued…

Besides lots of press inquiries we also are swamped with people who want us to open locks for them. For example, yesterday at the Amsterdam Toool meeting someone showed up bringing a 1984 payphone without keys. And yes, we did manage to open it.

The latest challenge came by mail. It is a big box that contains three locks. The text accompanying the images was: “I have an old trunk/coffin/strong box which comes from Damascus, probably modern (second half of XX century). It has three key holes (traditional keys) but all of them missing. Do you think there is anything that could be done to open it? We have much interest in doing that.”

Looking at the images I think this is not a box with three locks, but a so called ‘trick lock box’. My guess is you need to move one of the round knobs, or stick in a small pin trough a crack to either open the box or reveal the real keyway. But we only know when we visit this person and take a close look at the box personally.

So far we do not know more about the box, but maybe one of the blackbag readers knows this box or has some advice?

To be continued …