Sidewinder Thumbturn Opener | Locksmith Blog
Topic: Reviews

I recently received a new tool to play with designed by a locksmith named Simon Barber of Outside-In Lock Tools.

The 'Sidewinder' had been in the pipeline for some time and had been tested amongst locksmiths at local meets held by Jay at Island locks.



I watched its development on the online forum and saw feedback from the prototypes that were eventually tested out in the real locksmithing world.

The feedback was outstanding and it appeared that Si was on to a winner with his Sidewinder tool.

Certain aspects were refined and the final product was ready to be sold, snapped up instantly by all the locksmiths that had seen it.

Needless to say i was keen to test mine when it arrived this morning and nipped around a friends to test on his door (much appreciated).

The Sidewinder is a neat addition to the existing Souber letterbox tool. and is manufactured to fit perfectly with the same push together fixings.

So how does this locksmith tool actually work?

Set your letterbox tool up to the same specifications as if you were pulling the handle and use the Sidewinder fitting at the end.



Feel for the thumbturn of the lock and position the grippers over the end, you may need to feel the grippers gently over the turn then a good pull over the end will secure the grip.

The force you apply when turning the handle piece is directly  transferred through the cable to the lock thumbturn. It may wind up slightly before building up enough to throw the turn.

Now if like me you jump in without much thought you may want to remember to turn the correct way. (Turn as if you are locking on your side of the door). Take a step back and think about it...

Click, door open!



The Sidewinder is not limited to just thumbturns, it can be used on lever lock keys left inside, internal deadbolts and rounded nightlatch handles, basically anything that needs to be turned that you can get a decent grip on.

Mike at PSS locksmiths in Huddersfield recently unlocked a door with a huge bunch of keys in the back. A small child had locked his dad out whilst emptying the bins!

It is surely a great improvement over existing thumbturn tools that require winding reels of wire!

Im sure there are many yet undiscovered uses for this tool that we will no doubtedly hear about in the future.

Definately a tool to keep aboard the van and one i'd recommend to buy! It is now available through duffells on the link below.

http://www.duffells.com/products/outside-in-sidewinder-letter-box-tool-letterbox-tool-attachment-29032.aspx

Testing the Yale Anti-Snap | Locksmith Blog
Topic: Reviews

The latest Yale BS cylinder has been giving me grief for a while now.

Picking

Despite the unusually wide keyway of the new Yale BS, picking this lock cylinder is very tricky! As well as the usual spooled driver pins you will now find serrated key pins making it a formidable opponent. Long gone are the days a locksmith can quickly zap away with his EPG as this lock incorporates high tollerance security pins.

The serrated key pins will bind when a pinstack is lifted past the sheer line and into the milled groove on the pin. Unlike a spooled driver pin these cannot be 'undone' without releasing tension and allowing the pinstack to respring.

Bad news for me as my cylinder picking skills have gone completely out of the window as of late.

Snapping

Snapping a correctly fitted Yale cylinder outright is going to be no easy feat and well beyond the capabilities of the common burglar and his grips.

The joint inbetween the lock body and sacrificial section is a lot stronger than i expected, its not a case of using a flat blade screwdriver down the keyway, it is pretty resistant and still requires a good grip to remove this portion.

Removing the sacrificial section eliminates the first three pins of the lock cylinder and also the anti drill pin at the front of the cylinder, leaving you with three pinstacks.

The sheerline of the frontmost pinstack will be visible leaving you two to pick blind. You may find these surprisingly tricky since the plug now moves back and forth as well as rotating and may also contain a serrated key pin. You will also have the problem of getting tension on a lock set back behind the handle face and will probably need to make a custom tension wrench for this.

The remaining section of the lock incorporates the grip deflecting bumps that look like ball bearings. These work very well and make gripping anything other than the first few millimeters of the lock particulaly tricky, however several attempts sees them deform quickly, they are not the same strength as bearing steel.

The hardened spine of the lock is tough yet flexible and I failed to snap this section in a satisfactory way.

Drilling

The new Yale BS cylinder is no more drill resistant than the last BS rated lock cylinder.

It contains an antidrill pin pressed into the front of the lock however i found this to jump out of the bottom of the lock on several occasions when drilled in the 'sweet spot'. The plug contains two antidrill pins side by side in the front of the plug face.

There are several pinstacks containing stainless pins which can take some drilling even with a carbide drill bit should you be aiming for the traditional sheer line area.

Shimming

Shimming the lock by piercing the plug face is far trickier than if you remove the sacrifical section.

Snapping the front section of the lock gives you access to the sheer line of the lock and eliminates 3 pins from the equation. It will also save you wrecking a drill bit when you meet the two antidrill pins in the front of the plug.

The shim slides in nicely since you can see the first sheer line.

Remember my original lock shimming post? If you feel the shim slide in but jam the pinstack you are more than likely in a pin serration or catching a spool. Pulling the shim back a fraction so the pinstack resets will sort this but may have damaged the end of the shim.

So overall, what do i make of the new yale BS lock cylinder?

I think its a great lock for the money and the best from Yale so far, possibly the best anti-snap lock available on the UK market since it avoids the gimmicky keys like the ABS or Magnum that I find put off a lot of my customers off the idea.

These are readily available to the public at a reasonable price and a lock that I think may separate the handymen from the real locksmiths in the future.

Carbide tipped drill bits - Locksmith Blog
Topic: Reviews

With lock manufacturers being pressured into producing even more impenetrable locks our lives as locksmiths are getting trickier by the day.

Im not a big fan of pushing high security locks onto the domestic customers;

for one: It makes my life as a locksmith much more stressful in the event of a lockout.

two: Burglars rarely attmept to open a lock anyway.

So the last few months iv come across quite a few nasty locks that have felt the wrath of the rotary pick... and then laughed at me while they resisted to the last slither of metal holding them strong.

As most locksmiths will know; drilling a lock can go terribly wrong!
(Thats deffo not one of mine btw! HaHa)























Throw in torrential rain or a poorly lit alleyway and you are guarantee'd a headache.

So lets get to the point.

Good hardplate carbide tipped drills are relatively expensive!
Faced witha good BS rated cylinder and a spot of bad luck could see you using 3 bits when drilling at the traditional sheer line point.

Iv been testing a few different brands of carbide drill to see how they fare in the locksmiths world.

All drills have been tested on locks containing two or more hardened anti-drill pins plus one or more stainless key pins.

SKS budget drill:

These are priced in at £2-3 plus VAT for a useable size.

Poor penetration against hardened pins

Struggle against stainless key pins.



Budget Duffells drill:

Priced between £1.30 and £2.20 plus VAT for a useable size.

Reasonble penetration against hardened and stainless pins.

Cutting edge continues down the drill bit for widening holes

Souber Tungsten Carbide bits:

More expensive range at £3-4 plus vat for a useable size.

Reasonable penetration against hardened and stainless pins.

Last slightly longer that the other budget ranges.


In conclusion to my small test it seems that no drill bit greatly outperforms the other and all will struggle against a good BS rated lock.

The main point i can highlight is the difference in price and based on that fact I will be purchasing a batch of the duffells budget range on my next order as opposed to the more expensive souber ones.
The souber ones are better quality drill bit but not enough to reflect the extra cost.

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Ajam curtain picks - Locksmith Blog
Topic: Reviews

Iv always been a bit wary about buying expensive curtain picks. I just cannot justify shelling out hundreds of pounds for a few pieces of machined stainless.

Im sure im not the only one, therefore im happy to share another alternative:

A local locksmith that runs a training course nearby took the time to design some simple picks and have them machined at a local engineering firm.

These picks are cheap and simple, made from toughened steel they will never break or round off at the ends.

I have used these picks since he started producing them i even have a couple of the early prototypes in my toolbag and use them frequently when opening lever locks.

The set i own has five, six and seven gauge tools complete with standard and low bellied picks for reaching under the low hanging levers. All comes in a leather pouch.

Heres a few old locks i picked with the set a while back whilst testing the tools:

The whole set comes in at just over one hundred pounds!

Foil Impressioning Tool - Locksmith Blog
Topic: Reviews

A while ago i purchased one of those foil impressioning kits for dimple locks from UK bump keys.

I was really looking forward to having a play with this tool as a lot of videos had been circulating on the web.

My first problem was finding a lock that the tool actual fit into. It was no good for mul-t-lock and in the end i managed to find a knockoff made by Wan & Jia (that is also rekeyable with a special key) that i could try it out on.

The foil preparation is pretty fiddly but a few attempts and i managed to prepare the perfect piece.
A few seconds of wiggling and the lock opened... hurrah!



BUT

It also snapped the blade of the tool, with virtually no tension i might add.

All in all not a bad design but not strong enough to be used on the job, plus you may never come across a lock that it will actually fit in unless you live in mainland China, so probably not worth the investment.

Bit dissappointed but i may be able to use the parts for something else.... like a mul-t-lock tool....



This one was made from a mul-t-lock garrison blade and has yet to work for me. Its hardly precision engineering i just went at the key with a dremel for a while and im guessing i havent cut quite deep enough for the low sitting pins to rest.

Has anyone foil impressioned a garrison yet? Let me know!

Magnum Locks - Locksmith Blog
Topic: Reviews

I popped in my local lock supplier a few weeks back and was shown a new euro profile lock called the Magnum donning an additional millenco sticker.



Obviously a little money £££ exchanged hands and the lock was mine.

The cylinder itself, called the ''superior', consists of a 7 pin offset pinned plug with an additional 4 spring loaded wafer tumblers interacting with a sidebar.

The lock uses a machined steel spine to prevent snapping of the cylinder and is by far the best anti-snap design i have seen.

Initially this lock was a struggle to pick! I sent it off to Femurat; a hobbiest in Italy, who gave me some good tips on picking the lock.

The lock suffers the same flaw as the pin in pin cylinders whereby  there is a small degree of plug rotation once one element of the lock has been picked, in this case the seven pins.

Once you have this initial rotation and the seven pins are set you need to set the sidebar. Picking the sidebar sliders individually is a nightmare and a little frustrating. However whilst experimenting i discovered a major flaw that renders the sidebar useless.

Using the handle of a tension wrench it is possible to overlift the sliders into place.

What was initially a ten to fifteen minute picking session suddenly became seconds (with the aid of the trusty klom gun) and another lock was conquered.



Although it seems the lock is easilly pickable it does however provide outstanding destructive resistance.

Setting up the lock in an in door scenario, i decide to have a go at snapping the cylinder off.

Initially i only used the end 5mm of lock cylinder which quickly rounded off and crushed the end of the plug.
Then using the entire depth of the snapper bar still failed to budge the lock.



A similar test on an Ingersoll London Line cylinder shows the difference in resistance.



Magnum seem to make some interesting locks that i would love to get my hands on in particular the half moon cylinders.

It would be great if millenco started supplying these to all their new doors although i suspect obtaining new keys would be pretty pricey.

All in all not a bad lock to have in your door.