I think you should take a look at “bumping” where you use a lot of force to shake a pin up before trying to twist. It might be able to bypass your watchdog pin, so think about that if you are thinking of making a version 2. Anyways, keep up the good work, love the design.
Hear me out: go square, not round. Square pins in broached holes, that are connected into a long slot by the sheer line. No more misalignment, no more binding order. They all bind at the same time. Coupled with a very paracentric keyway this could be a picker's nightmare. In fact, why should the key be flat. It could be a small L-shaped profile at a 45 degree angle with teeth sticking out just far enough to interact with the key pins. Even if you get a pick in, you're guaranteed to overset half of them and not even feel it.
Um hi ye. I have a degree in manufacturing and over 5 years experience in lathe operation. If you buy me a mini-lathe Ill buy the 4 jaw chuck and materials to make that. If you dont like what I make after a week of getting all the stuff. I'll send you the lathe, chuck, and materials. So, if I win I get a mini-lathe. If you win you get the mini-lathe + tools + materials. You get to make the video either way. So what do you say?
@@BuiltDifferentDesigns Just so you know, the design of your lock is very similar to the design of a person named Andy Pugh (who is under that name on TH-cam). Just much simpler. I thought you might be interested.
Year that was my first thought before I even clicked on the link to his other video. I checked this video out before commenting. Because in this video he references the YT channel *Stuff Made Here* who also made an "unpickable lock" that the LPL took down with a different attack than tension & pin manipulation. So I am sure the guy who's doing this channel is aware of the LPL. So there's one to watch out for.
TBF being unpickable is easy -- every digital keypad is unpickable and you can just read a key with a digital sensor -- not having security vulnerabilities while being practical is what is hard.
As someone who has watched a bunch of lock picking stuff and never understood it, the single cardboard representation was insanely profound. Genuinely the best explanation I’ve ever heard.
Yes, for me too. Now I understand thelockpickinglawyer's use of "clicking out", "binding", etc. I never completely understood before this video. And it looks like a good design to me. Manufacturable at a moderate price point. I suppose there could be dramatic alternatives to this very conventional design, but that is the easiest managed with current industry tooling. The key doesn't even have to change at all. Once established as a reliable design for initially premium locks, more creative designs become viable. Question: Does he have a patent on this design?
Locksmith here, there are locks that are EXTREMELY hard to pick. The issue is price, people aren't willing to spend a hundred dollars or more on a basic lock. Not to mention installation, servicing, etc. The more pins, the more something can go wrong. Just one master pin can greatly reduce the pinning arrangements, I could make a "unpickable" at my shop. The issue is you wouldn't buy it, you might think you would. But you won't. People don't even want to pay for basic security pins, they WILL NOT pay for some hyper advanced lock. We sell Abloy locks, extremely high quality obscene pick resistance for a few hundred. And we also sell commercial master locks with pretty trivial pick resistance. We sell dozens of Masters a month, I've not seen a single Abloy sell in the last 2 months
I think that's where people like LPL come in showing how easily defeated common locks are. I ended up choosing a lock that while not expensive and not unpickable, requires an odd way of tensioning that would thwart most pickers. When I build my forever home and I have more valuable stuff in it, I will certainly be spending at bare minimum abloy price for my door Locks, which of course would be coupled with better hinges, hardware, doors and frames. I know most won't follow my lead, but I try to convince people of the value of security.
Isn't there also the issue that having a completely unpickable lock means if you lose the key you are going to have to break a window or knock a door down? Is completely unpickable really desirable? Really you just want something inconvenient enough that it's going to be obvious if someone is there trying to pick it...
It must be a cultural/historical/awareness thing too. In Finland Abloy locks are pretty ubiquitous. I personally happen to think that the main reason for this is the control of locks and key production via licensed locksmiths, intellectual property rights limitations for importing key blanks and the whole system where you have to order the key from the factory directly. The locks are safe, kinda pricey but people generally can't copy the keys. People who move into a new house generally don't change the locks if all the keys are still present and the lock is a fairly modern Abloy lock with patents still being enforceable and no licensed locksmith will go near copying a key or importing black market foreign key blanks. It's a trust thing and I don't think you can set up such a business model from scratch in 2024 and especially not in a country where no one trusts locks to begin with.
I have been a locksmith for 40 years -- the two cylinder technique has been patented by Corbin, and is known as master ring masterkeying. A similar technique was patented by Best - both were almost 100 years old when I was an apprentice . The false hole is also nothing new -- it is called a trap key cylinder. If you employ that technique, you have to have another way to open the lock, so you can free the trapped key or core.
Hello you may have discovered this already, but with resin printing you will benefit from getting a small uv light off Amazon to further cure your prints after printing. It's possible that some of the sticking you're experiencing is due to the slight tackiness of resin that isn't 100% cured. Great video!
3minutes in and this is the best simolified visualisation i’ve seen on why cheap locks are pickable, regardless of “pick-proofing” techniques such as the use of spools and such.
The issue with locks is - they serve the same purpose as a seal sticker. They are a "no one has tampered with this" device rather then a "no one has access to this" device. Because usually you can just use a crowbar and bypass the lock. It's just that it leaves marks. There is very few need for something that cannot properly protect against someone getting in, but just makes sure they when you come back and see it you know no one has been here. Let's face it - the only time you won't know if someone picked your lock would be if they were very professional at whatever they tried to do behind that door. If your place get's robbed, it makes little difference to you if they unlocked your front door with a lock pick or a crowbar.
Yeah no, security is about deterring the most common attacks on the weakest link for as cheap as possible and not about seal stickers. You know someone has entered your house when it is in a robbed state. And you care more about preventing that then knowing that it happened. You cant get through a metal door with a crowbar.
i mean, if your doors aren’t made of paper (like the US standard doors), opening them with a crowbar can be very difficult or almost impossible. next weakness is ofc windows, which you can put bars over (but probably don’t want to for residential homes) and of course, don’t make outer walls out of paper either. at this point the lock can actually be the weak point again
This is the best demonstration of why key way tension works that I have seen. It explained everything about picking that I have wondered about. Thank you.
More important than being unpickable, does it work at a wide range of temperatures as well as dust, moisture and dirt conditions? The fact that the conventional types are still on the market is an indication that being unpickable in NOT a primary concern.
there are though many hard to pick locks. Those special locks are just comparably expensive. That's the real reason these are not at every door. People just vote for flimsy insecure locks with their wallets
@@borincod Put another way, people are sold the idea that cheap locks are effective by lock companies that would rather make profit from quantity over quality. (This conversation quickly devolves into economic theory after this)
@@eyflfla your proposition is that supply defines demand. This works sometimes, indeed. For example, when a lot of marketing job is done. I wouldn't be so sure it is applicable to the lock market
At a guess, you could still bind the pins by applying forwards pressure against your cam plate, but it's definitely an interesting design! The thing about locks is they're more of a psychological barrier than a physical one. A glass door with a "NO ENTRY" sign is as secure as your inability to throw a rock through the glass. The goal is to encourage typical people to not interact with the locked item, and to be suspicious of atypical people who do anyway.
Good points. Yes an active video camera definitely deters. So do bright lights as people want to remain hidden in the dark. You can also get cheap motion sensor alarms off Amazon and place them in the shed or whatever you are protecting. More barriers then they want to deal with. In my small town we have a problem with night crawlers stealing from yard. I always tell people the first best method is sensor lights which are pretty cheap these days.
I feel like you’re correct here. A different guy recently made a similar “my take on an unpickable lock” video (it was great but I can’t remember his name) and I think his first design had the same vulnerability. He did…something with a spring at the back but I can’t remember what lol
I am an amateur locksport enthusiast, and I just wanted to say your cardboard demonstration at the beginning of your video was a good visual representation explaining how imperfections of the internal parts of a lock make it possible to have and identify binding pins so they can be "single pin picked" one at a time.
It has to be imperfect. If the surfaces were machined perfectly you would run into major stiction issues which would need oiled surfaces to resolve. However the lock is not sealed, so the oil would make its way out of the lock or worse, become contaminated and eventually jam the lock entirely.
Your passion is readily apparent. Reminds me of when I was green behind the ears getting into projects and stuff as a kid, just wanting to talk about and share them with others. It's refreshing as all hell. Subbed! :]
If I had a nickel for every TH-camr with an unpickable lock I'd have three nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's more than two! The two in question are "Stuff Made Here" which you already mentioned and "Works By Design" who just revealed a second version. Yours is definitely the simplest version I've seen so far.
Great design! This is possibly the best tweak to pin tumbler lock design I've ever seen. I'm not sure about how cheap it is to manufacture, though. Having core that needs lathe work, broaching and drilling for the core combined with drilling of the mid core seems potentially expensive. On the plus side, the looser tolerances needed for this kind of design help a lot with the price. I guess the biggest question is how many thin pin wafers you can use because that limits the number of "false gate" positions. For example, if you can fit only two wafer pins per stack and use 5 pins, total keyspace is only 3^5 or 243 different keys. Not great because if this kind of design were commonplace, a thief carrying full 243 key set could open every lock ever manufactured using this scheme. And you could add a second row of pins but then manufacturing it gets very expensive very fast. The design you used to separate set and test events was ingenious, though! All the other designs have required multiple actions by the user but this can do everything with a single turn, similar to disk detainer locks. I think a bit different shape for the middle part would be even better to avoid sharp angles in the cam mechanism but the idea is a good one. Of course, this lock can still be decoded, just like every other mechanical lock. But if you use tapered pins for everything, decoding the lock will be tedious task. I'm a bit sad that it took me this long to find this video. This is definitely a better design than the one I designed for my own pin tumbler variant.
This is an ASTOUNDINGLY brilliant design. I've been thinking about the same problem for months and you just blew all my designs out of the water. I hope you patented this!
I think that the reason that most locks are very easy to pick is that the simplest and most common method of bypass is and always will be physical force. Lock picking requires some level of knowledge and skill and while it's easy enough to learn these days historically it's been a much more rare skill. Even in modernity the method professional lock picks use is to destroy the lock with a drill.
@@shoo7130 Practically all locks have long-life lubricants inside them. They don't typically need to be re-lubricated in any reasonable amount of time. It would be more difficult (expensive) to produce locks that don't need lubricants to function.
If you think at your age it's amazing that we have the tech to create such things, affordably and reliably reproducible, in the relative comfort of your garage imagine how us old farts in our 60s and above feel. In my youth I was looking forward to The Jetsons lifestyle, we aren't all that far from that just with more crime than young Elroy was expecting. Nice design, lock-on my friend!
Very cool. I love seeing people's lock innovations. I totally agree with you.. its absolutely inexcusable that these lock companies are still making locks with vulnerabilities that have been well known for a LONG time .
Your cardboard visualization of how lockpicking works is by far the best demonstration of stacking tolerances I have ever seen. Fuckin fantastic work dude.
I love these vids because they show you the concept of why lockpicking still exists. They all claim to make a unpickable lock and even with the rudementory knowledge of lock picking they show you can immediately see that they haven't made a unpickable lock at all. As an old locksmith told me. "The only unpickable lock is a lock that exists in your imagination."
What's nice about those videos is how varied the approaches are to prevent or at least make difficult picking attempts Stuff made here made 2 locks, Works By Design made one and you made one yet all 4 locks are completely different in mechanism.
The demonstration of how lockpicking works was really well put together with showing why lockpicking actually works. Many just show that there are pins with springs that you can lift to open the lock but most do not explain why you can click pins like lockpickers do. To understand the flaw of locks is very important if you want to actually understand what you are doing and why it works. A perfect design would just drop the pins when they are lifted, you would not be able to trap them but it would probably be very hard to turn these locks if they were cheaply made.
There was a really old lock that I remember Lock Picking Lawyer showing off that had something similar to what you came up with, only the "wafers" were cup shaped and if you got a false set then they would drop into recesses that would permanently jam the lock.
Good, I'm glad someone else had this idea so I don't need to build it. For seperating setting and testing I suggest using donut shaped wafers so they can fit around some inner pin which can then function as the key (height picked by number of donuts around it) when the core rotates to some other point.
Great video, great idea! Best thing is that it can work with “normal” keys and doesn’t need any special key copy equipment at locksmiths I’d say make (or let make) a brass version and send it to LPL !
Hey I think this video is really great because you use big models and explain things really really well. Like, better than most engineers out there! I loved the demonstration of how to pick locks with the irregular pieces and the explanations of how your lock worked!
Great video, great idea! Best thing is that it can work with “normal” keys and doesn’t need any special key copy equipment at locksmiths I’d say make (or let make) a brass version and send it to LPL ! Also if there would be a way to retrofit existing locks with these enhancements, e.g. replace the single cylinder with the double one, that word be epic 🎉
Your design is similar in concept but quite different in execution to Tim Hutt's design (I'm guessing from your other comments that you've seen this one) - with yours potentially being more manufacturable. One possible vulnerability would be to shock / vibrate the lock in order to jiggle the pins while applying torque. It would be an interesting challenge to design a mechanism which decouples the inner and outer cylinders if the lock is bumped - I think it would be possible, and it would force you to reset the lock if you tried this sort of attack. As an aside, you've done a really good job in the presentation and pacing of this video - subscribed, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with next!
Yes! I have seen Tim's cross-lock. Almost the exact same core principle. I thought his push-in-then-turn concept was interesting for sure. How to ensure the selective torquing of the testing is one of the main challenges with these designs. I decided to target a standard keyway with this design. As far as your suggested vulnerability you are spot on. I haven't been able to test it but I agree that a shock attack may prove effective. I will talk about this vector and another in the next video.
I would recommend watching the lock picking lawyer as he shows the evolution of many lock devices. The big problem most independent lock makers over look is that pickers often look for the simplest method to defeat the cylinder. Plus I think the lock picking lawyer has a video where he defeated a simular designed lock with a screw driver and a traditional pick set.
I had a similar idea to this (using a stack of wafers to make the heights discrete and separate setting from checking), but this is a MUCH more viable take on that idea. Very neat design.
Ive seen many videos of lock picking and explanation on how it works, but no matter how good they try to explain I didn't get it. You have avery unique way of explaining using real world objects, thats simple and easy to understand.
Very innovative! I have seen a few people who have shared very similar ideas to this, and I do think there is a lot of potential with it. One major issue I will say (and you touched on it) is if this lock was mass produced, the large amount of masterpins/wafers would cause the lock to fail and get jammed up often, especially in situations where the lock is exposed to the elements. I would be interested and it would be really cool to see how well a lock like this would hold up after a few years in the field! ___ I know it's frustrating to see the same technology in locks, especially when they can be bypassed so easily in many cases. That being said, it's been this way for longer than just the last century and a half, but actually for a few thousand years when you consider warded locks, lever locks, and even the anchient Egyptian locks. This technology isn't going away, especially in today's age that has defined standards and rating for locks and door hardware that has been established and set over the last century and a half. The best we can do is raise the expectations of the quality and effectiveness of the locks that are already in production. You would be amazed at how good tolerances alone can make a lock very difficult to pick... but on top of the good tolerances, if it has a paracentric keyway, high-low bitting, and security pins (especially when there is matched milling in the plug), the lock becomes nearly unpickiable in the field when done right. I personally would love to see the overall standards of locks in NA go up. It is clearly a major issue when companies like Master Lock know about their security flaws and choose to ignore them since they know the general public is unaware and they will make more money that way... I don't want you to think I'm saying that it's not worth the effort you are making... by doing what you are doing, you are helping to educate the public on locks and the security flaws of the locks that exist here currently. Also, if you were to produce these as commercially available locks, you should do it as your own high security company (similar to what Bowley and other major lock manufacturers have done). This is typically how lock companies have developed and grown over the last century. Even masterlock was known for better quality locks a few decades ago, and even produced their own high security lock (#19). As other high security companies were gaining success and masterlock had already captured the basic comercial market, they discontinued their high security line and refocused their development on cheap low quality locks since that's where the money was for them and they didn't care about the reputation of having cheap low quality locks. This is why they don't fix their security flaws today.
Have a look at the Bowley locks. Simple parts and hard to pick. Needs very special picks and lots of time to get it open. Costs a couple hundred dollars though. I bought them because I liked the shape of the key.
They're definitely hard to pick, but it's still possible to pick them one at a time. The lockpick uses 5 picks at the same time, side by side. Also the lock itself doesn't function like a normal lock, which means that there's a learning curve on how to unlock even with the key. This lock, you can use a standard key *and* standard pins, and I don't see a way you can pick it one at a time. It's simpler, uses the same everything, and is exponentially more secure barring some other exploit.
I've seen videos of the Bowley locks getting picked with a metal wire in a vibrating tool (basically slightly more advanced bumping and raking) in just a few seconds. Allegedly, Bowley was so certain they had a winning design that they didn't use security pins nor different tension springs to safeguard against that. I haven't looked back at them since then, they might have fixed the issue by now.
@@5467nick There are 2 security pins in my Bowley locks that I have and I bought them when they first came out. Nobody is going to pick my door with those locks - they will just break the glass. But that's what the cameras are for....
Awesome video, loved the solution. But the visual aids were the best - very well explained with simple means! I´m just going ahead and let myself into your brain a little more by subscribing ;)
Was thinking the same. Found and used Abloy locks, but now days those are picked. Just when I started tinkering with my own solution, I found your video, and I must say I'm impressed. Plan to make the design "Copy left - creative common - open source"?
Well done! I subscribed right away to see where this goes next. I just realized this video is from 6 months ago. I will go look at your other videos and see if there is already an update. Keep in mind that the cheapest 3D printers are usually not a good deal. You will usually pay with time, frustration, and accuracy. One thing to also keep in mind when it comes to MSLA printers is that the ambient temperature of the room can effect the final size of the print. If you need fairly tight tolerances, and you adjust your model to try and get the final print to work, printing the exact same model on a day that is even just 5-10 degrees hotter or colder could make the final prints no longer fit together.
Have you considered having the pins of the inner core default to the inner shearline so it rotates freely when relaxed? This way, anyone putting tension on the core will force a rotation and be unable to get any information about the binding of the pins.
It's a clever ideas, but I'm not sure that would be desirable fur this lock? If the inner core can free rotate, then the cam can easily set the watchdog pin correctly. With that set, that could possibly lead to being able to tension the mid-core, and then be able to do a traditional pick on the pins maybe? I think therefore you might want the cam operation to be hidden behind a pin setting procedure like his design, to add time to getting to the cam setting watchdog pin. But I might be wrong. Yours is certainly the kind of thinking and testing you'd want to try in the real world to find out which is better in reality.
@@mikedoragh746 Yes, once I'd finished typing and hit to submit, I thought it was an idea with some flaws. Still, it seems no lock is truly unpickable, it's just a question of making it as frustrating as possible. I think the top strategy should be to make it look like any common-or-garden lock and provide any picker with no additional context (just like they would face in the real world). Don't even tell them there's anything special about the lock. That would make a truly fascinating picking video as they discovered what it was that faced them.
My All Time Favorite - LockLab Founder - Bosnian Bill (now retired from YT - to our loss) encountered something similar to this outer-sleeve-core in his challenge lock series: (1134) Whipped: Ray's Nightmare Challenge Lock This concept actually defeated him for two days! The back "watch dog" pin is a great improvement on the concept.
Well done edu video - entertaining with the editing animation and cut quality self-evident. Unrelated and unexpected chuckle for what sounded like "As a 'nangineer'... " 😄
I had pretty much the exact same idea, but i lack the 3d printing skills to actually test it. I have one major improvement suggestion. Having a full middle core is a lot of material and take a lot of space. Instead you can use a small block just above the inner core. If the call the rotation plane xy, inner core would push the block in the z-direction after turning a bit and only if the shear line fits is it able to push the middle block and complete the rotation. This also eliminates the need to protect against binding the core to the middle core, since they now move in different directions.
Needs a spool or serrated driver pin for the watchdog stack, to prevent bumping (that is, tapping with a hammer or something) that stack to the shear line (making the rest of the pick trivial).
I had similar design, but the issue is, that you could have a blank key, that lifts all wafers to the top, where it creates shear line with wafers. Better design would be to have master pin with slim part that accepts moving blade at some point to test all master pins height. Similar to a bar in those rotating locks with plates and hey with angled notches (sorry forgot the name) that have gates, false gates etc. Those also can be utilized to create such unpickable lock.
If the pin stack isn't tall enough to fit the pins like that, then it won't work. You can only comb-pick like that if the pin stack is manufactured with enough empty space to fit all of the pins above the shear line.
I would like to come with a name recommendation of “The watchlock” named after the watchdog pin. just a small thought that crossed my mind and I wanted to share it here
Thanks for watching. If you liked this video, subscribe and check out the other videos in this series!
I think you should take a look at “bumping” where you use a lot of force to shake a pin up before trying to twist. It might be able to bypass your watchdog pin, so think about that if you are thinking of making a version 2. Anyways, keep up the good work, love the design.
Hear me out: go square, not round. Square pins in broached holes, that are connected into a long slot by the sheer line. No more misalignment, no more binding order. They all bind at the same time. Coupled with a very paracentric keyway this could be a picker's nightmare. In fact, why should the key be flat. It could be a small L-shaped profile at a 45 degree angle with teeth sticking out just far enough to interact with the key pins. Even if you get a pick in, you're guaranteed to overset half of them and not even feel it.
Um hi ye. I have a degree in manufacturing and over 5 years experience in lathe operation. If you buy me a mini-lathe Ill buy the 4 jaw chuck and materials to make that. If you dont like what I make after a week of getting all the stuff. I'll send you the lathe, chuck, and materials. So, if I win I get a mini-lathe. If you win you get the mini-lathe + tools + materials. You get to make the video either way. So what do you say?
That cardboard "manufacturing defects" visualization was a genuine epiphany for me as to why locks are pickable
Glad that it helped! I hadn't seen anything quite like it before, more something you would find in a manufacturing lecture
Yeah this is honestly the best way of visualizing it!
@@BuiltDifferentDesigns Just so you know, the design of your lock is very similar to the design of a person named Andy Pugh (who is under that name on TH-cam). Just much simpler. I thought you might be interested.
Was a great way to show the theory behind picking
Same here, I never really understood the concept until it was demonstrated so effectively in this video!
Great use of CAD (cardboard-aided design)
😂😂😂
nice
A fellow wintergarten viewer?
Lube it, don't go in dry
@@dronenuts1156I am
Lock Picking Lawyer: Hold all my beers.
He has to send him the lock 👍😎
Year that was my first thought before I even clicked on the link to his other video. I checked this video out before commenting.
Because in this video he references the YT channel *Stuff Made Here* who also made an "unpickable lock" that the LPL took down with a different attack than tension & pin manipulation. So I am sure the guy who's doing this channel is aware of the LPL.
So there's one to watch out for.
TBF being unpickable is easy -- every digital keypad is unpickable and you can just read a key with a digital sensor -- not having security vulnerabilities while being practical is what is hard.
@@simonrz It is tradition by now.
05:05 nice click out of 5
Jinx
I have never seen such a clear and practical demonstration of how lockpicking works than with your cardboard and hole saws.
As someone who has watched a bunch of lock picking stuff and never understood it, the single cardboard representation was insanely profound. Genuinely the best explanation I’ve ever heard.
3:22 This is the best explanation of lockpicking I've seen.
Yes, for me too. Now I understand thelockpickinglawyer's use of "clicking out", "binding", etc. I never completely understood before this video.
And it looks like a good design to me. Manufacturable at a moderate price point.
I suppose there could be dramatic alternatives to this very conventional design, but that is the easiest managed with current industry tooling. The key doesn't even have to change at all.
Once established as a reliable design for initially premium locks, more creative designs become viable.
Question: Does he have a patent on this design?
"You are using a built different designs homemade lock, it can be opened using a built different desings homemade lock"
I’m surprised it took me this long to find a McNally reference
Came looking for a comment like this
Locksmith here, there are locks that are EXTREMELY hard to pick.
The issue is price, people aren't willing to spend a hundred dollars or more on a basic lock. Not to mention installation, servicing, etc.
The more pins, the more something can go wrong.
Just one master pin can greatly reduce the pinning arrangements, I could make a "unpickable" at my shop. The issue is you wouldn't buy it, you might think you would. But you won't. People don't even want to pay for basic security pins, they WILL NOT pay for some hyper advanced lock.
We sell Abloy locks, extremely high quality obscene pick resistance for a few hundred. And we also sell commercial master locks with pretty trivial pick resistance.
We sell dozens of Masters a month, I've not seen a single Abloy sell in the last 2 months
Exactly, the main thing about economics is how to make cheap locks that are just 80% better at pick resistance without much extra cost.
I think that's where people like LPL come in showing how easily defeated common locks are. I ended up choosing a lock that while not expensive and not unpickable, requires an odd way of tensioning that would thwart most pickers. When I build my forever home and I have more valuable stuff in it, I will certainly be spending at bare minimum abloy price for my door Locks, which of course would be coupled with better hinges, hardware, doors and frames. I know most won't follow my lead, but I try to convince people of the value of security.
Isn't there also the issue that having a completely unpickable lock means if you lose the key you are going to have to break a window or knock a door down? Is completely unpickable really desirable? Really you just want something inconvenient enough that it's going to be obvious if someone is there trying to pick it...
aou could sotre a key with a good friend or a good hiding spot in the garden at least that is what i would do
It must be a cultural/historical/awareness thing too. In Finland Abloy locks are pretty ubiquitous. I personally happen to think that the main reason for this is the control of locks and key production via licensed locksmiths, intellectual property rights limitations for importing key blanks and the whole system where you have to order the key from the factory directly. The locks are safe, kinda pricey but people generally can't copy the keys. People who move into a new house generally don't change the locks if all the keys are still present and the lock is a fairly modern Abloy lock with patents still being enforceable and no licensed locksmith will go near copying a key or importing black market foreign key blanks. It's a trust thing and I don't think you can set up such a business model from scratch in 2024 and especially not in a country where no one trusts locks to begin with.
I have been a locksmith for 40 years -- the two cylinder technique has been patented by Corbin, and is known as master ring masterkeying. A similar technique was patented by Best - both were almost 100 years old when I was an apprentice . The false hole is also nothing new -- it is called a trap key cylinder. If you employ that technique, you have to have another way to open the lock, so you can free the trapped key or core.
That’s interesting. Do you know the patent-numbers?
@@malvoliosf I have replied twice, but something is bouncing my posts
@@willschmit436 Huh, well, your comment is appearing here.
@@malvoliosf OK - so you got my explanation, and three links (two PDFs, and one youtube)?
@willschmit436 Nope, do try again now that TH-cam is allowing your messages!
Hello you may have discovered this already, but with resin printing you will benefit from getting a small uv light off Amazon to further cure your prints after printing. It's possible that some of the sticking you're experiencing is due to the slight tackiness of resin that isn't 100% cured. Great video!
3minutes in and this is the best simolified visualisation i’ve seen on why cheap locks are pickable, regardless of “pick-proofing” techniques such as the use of spools and such.
okay that taught me more about picking than I ever was able to grasp. 1:34 - 4:04
It taught me enough so that I can understand what lpl is rambling about when he is picking locks.
The first 3 minutes really helped cement my understanding of why pins "bind" - excellent video!
Honestly after this video I feel like I could lock pick now, not the intended effect but the visuals are so helpful for explaining how it all works
The issue with locks is - they serve the same purpose as a seal sticker. They are a "no one has tampered with this" device rather then a "no one has access to this" device. Because usually you can just use a crowbar and bypass the lock. It's just that it leaves marks. There is very few need for something that cannot properly protect against someone getting in, but just makes sure they when you come back and see it you know no one has been here. Let's face it - the only time you won't know if someone picked your lock would be if they were very professional at whatever they tried to do behind that door. If your place get's robbed, it makes little difference to you if they unlocked your front door with a lock pick or a crowbar.
Yeah no, security is about deterring the most common attacks on the weakest link for as cheap as possible and not about seal stickers. You know someone has entered your house when it is in a robbed state. And you care more about preventing that then knowing that it happened.
You cant get through a metal door with a crowbar.
i mean, if your doors aren’t made of paper (like the US standard doors), opening them with a crowbar can be very difficult or almost impossible. next weakness is ofc windows, which you can put bars over (but probably don’t want to for residential homes) and of course, don’t make outer walls out of paper either. at this point the lock can actually be the weak point again
@@asdfghyterlol no
@@asdfghyter Breaking stuff is loud, which makes locks have a slight security feature. If they don't pick them they might be heard.
@@safetyinspector250 that's also a good point. you can also put alarms on windows to detect when someone breaks them
Cost is the enemy of precision. Great demonstration. Thanks for sharing this description of single pin picking ;)
This is the best demonstration of why key way tension works that I have seen. It explained everything about picking that I have wondered about.
Thank you.
Finally I understand where it's latching onto and what "binding" means.
Fun fact : Master Lock also makes its locks from cardboard.
Your explanation with the cardboard is the best intuitive way to explain lock picking I've ever seen :o
I always watch the Lockpicking Lawyer but I learned more from this in a few minutes :-) I'm slow. But hey, great! Loved it!
More important than being unpickable, does it work at a wide range of temperatures as well as dust, moisture and dirt conditions? The fact that the conventional types are still on the market is an indication that being unpickable in NOT a primary concern.
As well as... If someone can't pick it and wants in they'll just break it either way.
@KodakYarr yes, if you have infinite time and you can use any tool. Clever thieves would just choose an easier target secured with a Masterlock
there are though many hard to pick locks. Those special locks are just comparably expensive. That's the real reason these are not at every door. People just vote for flimsy insecure locks with their wallets
@@borincod Put another way, people are sold the idea that cheap locks are effective by lock companies that would rather make profit from quantity over quality. (This conversation quickly devolves into economic theory after this)
@@eyflfla your proposition is that supply defines demand. This works sometimes, indeed. For example, when a lot of marketing job is done. I wouldn't be so sure it is applicable to the lock market
Will believe it when Lock Picking Lawyer approves it
At a guess, you could still bind the pins by applying forwards pressure against your cam plate, but it's definitely an interesting design! The thing about locks is they're more of a psychological barrier than a physical one. A glass door with a "NO ENTRY" sign is as secure as your inability to throw a rock through the glass. The goal is to encourage typical people to not interact with the locked item, and to be suspicious of atypical people who do anyway.
I dont see how forward pressure would bind anything if the testing happens after rotation. Could you elaborate
@@dark6.6E-34 remember the demonstration with the cardboard at 2:30?
imagine if he slides the cardboard left or right rather than up
Good points. Yes an active video camera definitely deters. So do bright lights as people want to remain hidden in the dark. You can also get cheap motion sensor alarms off Amazon and place them in the shed or whatever you are protecting. More barriers then they want to deal with. In my small town we have a problem with night crawlers stealing from yard. I always tell people the first best method is sensor lights which are pretty cheap these days.
@@wans3216 Ik, what the directions mean. But I realized from the demonstration at min 6-7 what the idea was. I am curious now if it works.
I feel like you’re correct here. A different guy recently made a similar “my take on an unpickable lock” video (it was great but I can’t remember his name) and I think his first design had the same vulnerability. He did…something with a spring at the back but I can’t remember what lol
First time I've understood what's actually going on in all the LPL videos I've watched. Thanks!
I am an amateur locksport enthusiast, and I just wanted to say your cardboard demonstration at the beginning of your video was a good visual representation explaining how imperfections of the internal parts of a lock make it possible to have and identify binding pins so they can be "single pin picked" one at a time.
It has to be imperfect. If the surfaces were machined perfectly you would run into major stiction issues which would need oiled surfaces to resolve. However the lock is not sealed, so the oil would make its way out of the lock or worse, become contaminated and eventually jam the lock entirely.
That's a bit of BRILLIANCE. Definitely got my gears turning.
Your passion is readily apparent. Reminds me of when I was green behind the ears getting into projects and stuff as a kid, just wanting to talk about and share them with others. It's refreshing as all hell. Subbed! :]
If I had a nickel for every TH-camr with an unpickable lock I'd have three nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's more than two!
The two in question are "Stuff Made Here" which you already mentioned and "Works By Design" who just revealed a second version.
Yours is definitely the simplest version I've seen so far.
@BetaKeja - You forgot about the Bowley lock that LPL couldn't pick.
@@wickedcabinboy Bowley isn't a TH-camr. 😝But that's another lock following a similar principle.
The best part about this design is that it isn't over complicated and doesn't require precise manufacturing
I watched a lot of lock opening videos and now I finally understand what they do and how they are doing it. Thanks
CI lockpicks and lishi tools are an absolute flex, truly some F-U money. Nice video!
This is one of the best idea and explanation on lockpicking wow I’m flabbergasted
Great design! This is possibly the best tweak to pin tumbler lock design I've ever seen. I'm not sure about how cheap it is to manufacture, though. Having core that needs lathe work, broaching and drilling for the core combined with drilling of the mid core seems potentially expensive. On the plus side, the looser tolerances needed for this kind of design help a lot with the price. I guess the biggest question is how many thin pin wafers you can use because that limits the number of "false gate" positions.
For example, if you can fit only two wafer pins per stack and use 5 pins, total keyspace is only 3^5 or 243 different keys. Not great because if this kind of design were commonplace, a thief carrying full 243 key set could open every lock ever manufactured using this scheme. And you could add a second row of pins but then manufacturing it gets very expensive very fast.
The design you used to separate set and test events was ingenious, though! All the other designs have required multiple actions by the user but this can do everything with a single turn, similar to disk detainer locks. I think a bit different shape for the middle part would be even better to avoid sharp angles in the cam mechanism but the idea is a good one.
Of course, this lock can still be decoded, just like every other mechanical lock. But if you use tapered pins for everything, decoding the lock will be tedious task.
I'm a bit sad that it took me this long to find this video. This is definitely a better design than the one I designed for my own pin tumbler variant.
This is an ASTOUNDINGLY brilliant design. I've been thinking about the same problem for months and you just blew all my designs out of the water. I hope you patented this!
Amazing explanation/demonstration of how lockpicking works, that made it so clear
I think that the reason that most locks are very easy to pick is that the simplest and most common method of bypass is and always will be physical force. Lock picking requires some level of knowledge and skill and while it's easy enough to learn these days historically it's been a much more rare skill. Even in modernity the method professional lock picks use is to destroy the lock with a drill.
Speaking as a LockSmith... if your "goto" is a drill, You're not much of a LS
A) Great Video!
B) Friction? ->Grease, works for Most problems
I have never had to re-lubricate a lock before and I don't want to start now.
@@shoo7130 Practically all locks have long-life lubricants inside them. They don't typically need to be re-lubricated in any reasonable amount of time. It would be more difficult (expensive) to produce locks that don't need lubricants to function.
1:30 This is the best example of both lock precision and picking order ive seen. 👍
Wow, what an amazing video! Extremely clear, informative, well paced. Excellent production quality
If you think at your age it's amazing that we have the tech to create such things, affordably and reliably reproducible, in the relative comfort of your garage imagine how us old farts in our 60s and above feel. In my youth I was looking forward to The Jetsons lifestyle, we aren't all that far from that just with more crime than young Elroy was expecting. Nice design, lock-on my friend!
This is by far the best design I’ve seen for an improved lock
Both you and Bowley are excellent inspirations for security in these locks. Thanks to it contribution in the loch security space
Very cool. I love seeing people's lock innovations. I totally agree with you.. its absolutely inexcusable that these lock companies are still making locks with vulnerabilities that have been well known for a LONG time .
Your cardboard visualization of how lockpicking works is by far the best demonstration of stacking tolerances I have ever seen.
Fuckin fantastic work dude.
I love these vids because they show you the concept of why lockpicking still exists. They all claim to make a unpickable lock and even with the rudementory knowledge of lock picking they show you can immediately see that they haven't made a unpickable lock at all.
As an old locksmith told me. "The only unpickable lock is a lock that exists in your imagination."
What's nice about those videos is how varied the approaches are to prevent or at least make difficult picking attempts
Stuff made here made 2 locks, Works By Design made one and you made one yet all 4 locks are completely different in mechanism.
The demonstration of how lockpicking works was really well put together with showing why lockpicking actually works. Many just show that there are pins with springs that you can lift to open the lock but most do not explain why you can click pins like lockpickers do. To understand the flaw of locks is very important if you want to actually understand what you are doing and why it works. A perfect design would just drop the pins when they are lifted, you would not be able to trap them but it would probably be very hard to turn these locks if they were cheaply made.
I really love the visual explanation it really made it click what lockpicks are actually doing
This was the clearest and best explanation of locks, and I’ve seen many of the other great unpick-able lock videos with their own great explanations.
There was a really old lock that I remember Lock Picking Lawyer showing off that had something similar to what you came up with, only the "wafers" were cup shaped and if you got a false set then they would drop into recesses that would permanently jam the lock.
The example was deceptively fun and easy to understand... Scaled up examples of tiny parts!
Good, I'm glad someone else had this idea so I don't need to build it. For seperating setting and testing I suggest using donut shaped wafers so they can fit around some inner pin which can then function as the key (height picked by number of donuts around it) when the core rotates to some other point.
This guy is prob going to be famous soon
Stumbled on your .channel by accident, very clever idea and eloquently explained
That was such a good visual demo to start with to explain lock picking
Great video, great idea!
Best thing is that it can work with “normal” keys and doesn’t need any special key copy equipment at locksmiths
I’d say make (or let make) a brass version and send it to LPL !
Hey I think this video is really great because you use big models and explain things really really well. Like, better than most engineers out there! I loved the demonstration of how to pick locks with the irregular pieces and the explanations of how your lock worked!
Great video, great idea!
Best thing is that it can work with “normal” keys and doesn’t need any special key copy equipment at locksmiths
I’d say make (or let make) a brass version and send it to LPL !
Also if there would be a way to retrofit existing locks with these enhancements, e.g. replace the single cylinder with the double one, that word be epic 🎉
That cardboard "manufacturing defects" visualization is brilliant.
great video and can't wait for the follow up
Your design is similar in concept but quite different in execution to Tim Hutt's design (I'm guessing from your other comments that you've seen this one) - with yours potentially being more manufacturable.
One possible vulnerability would be to shock / vibrate the lock in order to jiggle the pins while applying torque. It would be an interesting challenge to design a mechanism which decouples the inner and outer cylinders if the lock is bumped - I think it would be possible, and it would force you to reset the lock if you tried this sort of attack.
As an aside, you've done a really good job in the presentation and pacing of this video - subscribed, and I look forward to seeing what you come up with next!
Yes! I have seen Tim's cross-lock. Almost the exact same core principle. I thought his push-in-then-turn concept was interesting for sure. How to ensure the selective torquing of the testing is one of the main challenges with these designs. I decided to target a standard keyway with this design.
As far as your suggested vulnerability you are spot on. I haven't been able to test it but I agree that a shock attack may prove effective. I will talk about this vector and another in the next video.
I would recommend watching the lock picking lawyer as he shows the evolution of many lock devices.
The big problem most independent lock makers over look is that pickers often look for the simplest method to defeat the cylinder.
Plus I think the lock picking lawyer has a video where he defeated a simular designed lock with a screw driver and a traditional pick set.
You have to be the best informative and creative TH-camrs i gave ever seen
I had a similar idea to this (using a stack of wafers to make the heights discrete and separate setting from checking), but this is a MUCH more viable take on that idea. Very neat design.
I think this is the best way I've seen lock picking explained 👏
Bro this is the best lock picking explanation I’ve ever seen…
3:15 BEST explanation i have ever seen. Ty
A new challenger steps up
Ive seen many videos of lock picking and explanation on how it works, but no matter how good they try to explain I didn't get it.
You have avery unique way of explaining using real world objects, thats simple and easy to understand.
Very innovative! I have seen a few people who have shared very similar ideas to this, and I do think there is a lot of potential with it.
One major issue I will say (and you touched on it) is if this lock was mass produced, the large amount of masterpins/wafers would cause the lock to fail and get jammed up often, especially in situations where the lock is exposed to the elements.
I would be interested and it would be really cool to see how well a lock like this would hold up after a few years in the field!
___
I know it's frustrating to see the same technology in locks, especially when they can be bypassed so easily in many cases. That being said, it's been this way for longer than just the last century and a half, but actually for a few thousand years when you consider warded locks, lever locks, and even the anchient Egyptian locks. This technology isn't going away, especially in today's age that has defined standards and rating for locks and door hardware that has been established and set over the last century and a half.
The best we can do is raise the expectations of the quality and effectiveness of the locks that are already in production. You would be amazed at how good tolerances alone can make a lock very difficult to pick... but on top of the good tolerances, if it has a paracentric keyway, high-low bitting, and security pins (especially when there is matched milling in the plug), the lock becomes nearly unpickiable in the field when done right.
I personally would love to see the overall standards of locks in NA go up. It is clearly a major issue when companies like Master Lock know about their security flaws and choose to ignore them since they know the general public is unaware and they will make more money that way...
I don't want you to think I'm saying that it's not worth the effort you are making... by doing what you are doing, you are helping to educate the public on locks and the security flaws of the locks that exist here currently. Also, if you were to produce these as commercially available locks, you should do it as your own high security company (similar to what Bowley and other major lock manufacturers have done). This is typically how lock companies have developed and grown over the last century. Even masterlock was known for better quality locks a few decades ago, and even produced their own high security lock (#19). As other high security companies were gaining success and masterlock had already captured the basic comercial market, they discontinued their high security line and refocused their development on cheap low quality locks since that's where the money was for them and they didn't care about the reputation of having cheap low quality locks. This is why they don't fix their security flaws today.
I like your solution, little secret "you can break every Unpickable lock"😃
Yup it might not be extremely fast or easy but it will break
SOME ONE FUND THIS MAN HE'S A GENIUS!!!
Have a look at the Bowley locks. Simple parts and hard to pick. Needs very special picks and lots of time to get it open. Costs a couple hundred dollars though. I bought them because I liked the shape of the key.
They're definitely hard to pick, but it's still possible to pick them one at a time. The lockpick uses 5 picks at the same time, side by side. Also the lock itself doesn't function like a normal lock, which means that there's a learning curve on how to unlock even with the key. This lock, you can use a standard key *and* standard pins, and I don't see a way you can pick it one at a time. It's simpler, uses the same everything, and is exponentially more secure barring some other exploit.
@@dave-kt7sj But the Bowley uses much less parts and easier to assemble. Yes it is pickable but not easily and you need those special picks.
@@halohms If you remove all the bitting, the part count is similar.
I've seen videos of the Bowley locks getting picked with a metal wire in a vibrating tool (basically slightly more advanced bumping and raking) in just a few seconds. Allegedly, Bowley was so certain they had a winning design that they didn't use security pins nor different tension springs to safeguard against that. I haven't looked back at them since then, they might have fixed the issue by now.
@@5467nick There are 2 security pins in my Bowley locks that I have and I bought them when they first came out. Nobody is going to pick my door with those locks - they will just break the glass. But that's what the cameras are for....
5:02 hearing you say that was so satisfying!
Awesome video, loved the solution. But the visual aids were the best - very well explained with simple means! I´m just going ahead and let myself into your brain a little more by subscribing ;)
For real, i once picked a lock as a kid without even knowing what i was doing. It is shockingly easy
that was the best explanation for binding i've seen
Was thinking the same. Found and used Abloy locks, but now days those are picked. Just when I started tinkering with my own solution, I found your video, and I must say I'm impressed.
Plan to make the design "Copy left - creative common - open source"?
Well done! I subscribed right away to see where this goes next. I just realized this video is from 6 months ago. I will go look at your other videos and see if there is already an update.
Keep in mind that the cheapest 3D printers are usually not a good deal. You will usually pay with time, frustration, and accuracy. One thing to also keep in mind when it comes to MSLA printers is that the ambient temperature of the room can effect the final size of the print. If you need fairly tight tolerances, and you adjust your model to try and get the final print to work, printing the exact same model on a day that is even just 5-10 degrees hotter or colder could make the final prints no longer fit together.
I dont know why but I love those cardboard diagrams also this is the only video that taught me how picking a lock worked
Have you considered having the pins of the inner core default to the inner shearline so it rotates freely when relaxed? This way, anyone putting tension on the core will force a rotation and be unable to get any information about the binding of the pins.
It's a clever ideas, but I'm not sure that would be desirable fur this lock? If the inner core can free rotate, then the cam can easily set the watchdog pin correctly. With that set, that could possibly lead to being able to tension the mid-core, and then be able to do a traditional pick on the pins maybe? I think therefore you might want the cam operation to be hidden behind a pin setting procedure like his design, to add time to getting to the cam setting watchdog pin. But I might be wrong. Yours is certainly the kind of thinking and testing you'd want to try in the real world to find out which is better in reality.
@@mikedoragh746 Yes, once I'd finished typing and hit to submit, I thought it was an idea with some flaws. Still, it seems no lock is truly unpickable, it's just a question of making it as frustrating as possible. I think the top strategy should be to make it look like any common-or-garden lock and provide any picker with no additional context (just like they would face in the real world). Don't even tell them there's anything special about the lock. That would make a truly fascinating picking video as they discovered what it was that faced them.
Very nice design, great work!
My All Time Favorite - LockLab Founder - Bosnian Bill (now retired from YT - to our loss) encountered something similar to this outer-sleeve-core in his challenge lock series: (1134) Whipped: Ray's Nightmare Challenge Lock
This concept actually defeated him for two days!
The back "watch dog" pin is a great improvement on the concept.
Well done edu video - entertaining with the editing animation and cut quality self-evident. Unrelated and unexpected chuckle for what sounded like "As a 'nangineer'... " 😄
Fantastic work. I would love to try picking it 🔓
Excellent explanation
Use some graphite to help with friction
Good idea. I tried some tri-flow but it didn't seem to work well with the plastic.
I had pretty much the exact same idea, but i lack the 3d printing skills to actually test it.
I have one major improvement suggestion. Having a full middle core is a lot of material and take a lot of space. Instead you can use a small block just above the inner core. If the call the rotation plane xy, inner core would push the block in the z-direction after turning a bit and only if the shear line fits is it able to push the middle block and complete the rotation. This also eliminates the need to protect against binding the core to the middle core, since they now move in different directions.
I cant wait for more unpickable locks
Mcnally: Hold my beer
Lock picking lawyer: mine too
Needs a spool or serrated driver pin for the watchdog stack, to prevent bumping (that is, tapping with a hammer or something) that stack to the shear line (making the rest of the pick trivial).
Bolt cutters and bricks make for a much quicker entry into most homes/vehicles. This would be cool for a lockbox or the like though. Nice work 👍
I had similar design, but the issue is, that you could have a blank key, that lifts all wafers to the top, where it creates shear line with wafers. Better design would be to have master pin with slim part that accepts moving blade at some point to test all master pins height. Similar to a bar in those rotating locks with plates and hey with angled notches (sorry forgot the name) that have gates, false gates etc. Those also can be utilized to create such unpickable lock.
If the pin stack isn't tall enough to fit the pins like that, then it won't work. You can only comb-pick like that if the pin stack is manufactured with enough empty space to fit all of the pins above the shear line.
Lockpicking Lawyer, by your name, I summon thee!
I would like to come with a name recommendation of “The watchlock” named after the watchdog pin. just a small thought that crossed my mind and I wanted to share it here
the lego sounds when you were assembling the model was awesome
Very nice. I was pondering a similar design, but hadn't come up with the watchdog pin yet. That's brilliant.
Ingenious! Unfortunately it is practically impossible from a manufacturing/cost standpoint. Locks only stop honest people.