Milling Lever Lock Picks from Single Piece of Steel?

[SidebarSam]

Yesterday I made the cuts that I needed on the tension part of the tool. Later that day I realized that I milled them backwards! The part was not salvageable so I machined a completely new piece with the proper cuts and did it much more efficiently than the first two attempts. Just now I got the chance to test fit it in an actual lock and it works perfect. The fit is really snug in the keyway which is generally a good thing in these types of tools.

Today comes the hard part which is making the pick portion of the tool. I am having trouble with the part bending/defecting as I'm milling. I don't know exactly what to do about this. I looked into collet blocks but I would think I need something more adjustable than that. Another idea I had is to make some sort of jig. I could cast some resin into a rectangular cube with the part inside and then mill the cube and part together. That way the resin would give some support to the piece.

Anyway if all goes well I'm hoping that maybe by the end of this week I'll have the Abloy picked.


Fits perfect!

 

[David S]

I haven't worked on disc detainer locks so this is interesting. Only work on "high security" lever locks like S&G and chubb. We use titanium for some of the probes.

Are you building this to not only manipulate to open, but also to decode in order to determine the bitting and make a key?

David

 

[cjtoombs]

I was watching a video on a home built rifling machine in which he refered to a tool to turn small, long (~.30" x 30+") rods to use with the rifling machine. I looked up the tool, it had a hole that the rod went in, I think it had some supports built into it, and a tool that was pushed forward by a screw. You put this whole setup in the tool post and it provided the guidance, tool support and tool advance all in one unit. I looked quite slick, and If I were going to be turning long skinny rods, I would build one. I can't remember where I found the info, but I remember enough about it that I could reproduce it. Hope my description was good enough for you.

 

[SidebarSam]

I haven't worked on disc detainer locks so this is interesting. Only work on "high security" lever locks like S&G and chubb. We use titanium for some of the probes.

Are you building this to not only manipulate to open, but also to decode in order to determine the bitting and make a key?

David

My main goal right now is just to pick the lock open but I plan on adding the markings (for each disc and what depth) that will allow for decoding as well. The markings should make picking the lock easier too. There are only 6 positions for the discs and they are in 18 degree increments. I don't know the spacing between the discs off the top of my head but I can measure that with a digital caliper.

I hope to make some lever lock picks pretty soon. There are a couple keyed safe locks (Mauer Varos, S&G 6804) that I would like to get open. My next project though will be a tension tool for the newer style Bramah locks.

I was watching a video on a home built rifling machine in which he refered to a tool to turn small, long (~.30" x 30+") rods to use with the rifling machine. I looked up the tool, it had a hole that the rod went in, I think it had some supports built into it, and a tool that was pushed forward by a screw. You put this whole setup in the tool post and it provided the guidance, tool support and tool advance all in one unit. I looked quite slick, and If I were going to be turning long skinny rods, I would build one. I can't remember where I found the info, but I remember enough about it that I could reproduce it. Hope my description was good enough for you.

Thanks for the info, That makes a lot of sense and doesn't seem to hard to build. I'll be working on the pick portion of the tool tonight and maybe I'll see if I can make something similar.

 

[SidebarSam]

I just now finished some of the pick portion of the tool. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out so far but there is still a ways to go. I ended up stacking parallels underneath the piece when I was milling to keep it straight and that worked well enough to prevent bending. The tube has a thickness of roughly .04" .

I might do some more work on it tonight. From here I will see how much more material I can remove with the mill and from there finish with the Dremel and files. After that I have a few more inches of turning to do and then drill the back half of the pick. If I can get this piece finished I can start working on picking the lock.

 

[SidebarSam]

I made a good amount of progress on the pick portion of the tool today. Milling the 5.8mm diameter .04" thick tube went OK. It took me about 100 (no exaggeration) light passes on the mill before I got to almost the point where it needed to be when the tube suddenly bent. The bend is very slight so I think the part may be salvageable. It's also thin enough now that I can bend back with my hands if need be. I'm slightly concerned because of the tight the tolerances but I'm so close to finishing I don't want to restart. At least now I know where I need to stop if I have to make another one.

After removing the slightly deformed part from the mill I finished the rest with a Dremel, files, and then sandpaper. The pictures below shows the tool after being removed from the mill and where I am currently at. At this point all I need to do is turn the rest of the base and drill the center. If I finish that tonight I'll be ready to test it on a real lock.

After removing from the mill

After using the dremel and files to remove excess material

 

[SidebarSam]

I finished the pick portion of the tool and now I can work on picking the lock. I've actually been working on picking it for the last few minutes. I haven't got it open yet and there is room improvement but it is definitely capable of doing so.

There are a couple things I noticed now that will/would make picking easier. First off is the tolerances. I think if I made the tool just slightly smaller it would make sliding in and out of working in between the discs easier. Right now it feels too snug. When or if I make a second tool it will be just a little bit smaller. The second thing would be the handles with markings for the space and depth which I plan to make tomorrow. Right now it's hard to apply tension because the base of the tools are thin and smooth. Picking is also very difficult because I have no visual indication of the depth of the pick.

So tomorrow I'll get started on making the handles with markings for space and depth. The discs are spaced 1.4mm apart and there are 6 depths for the discs in 18 degree increments. I'll use either 3/4" or 1" aluminium round stock for the handles. So far everything I have machined has been 1144 steel and I'm very much looking forward to working with a softer material.

Closeup of pick and tensioner

Fully inserted into a Abloy 3020 padlock

 

[royesses]

Welcome to the forum. Very impressive for someone new to machining.

Roy

 

[SidebarSam]

Abloy Classic Picked!

Tonight I finally got an Abloy picked with my tool.


Though the first tool I completed was capable of picking the lock there were some flaws that I found that if corrected would make picking much easier. Yesterday I decided to make a second tool and this time it only took about 5 hours compared the 3-4 days to make the first tool. This second tool works much better and is easier to use.

I still need to make the depth/space markings for the handles but it's nice knowing that I don't need them to pick the lock.

The first tool is on top, the newer tool is on bottom

I plan to make a few more of these and than I'll move onto making a tool for a different lock.

Welcome to the forum. Very impressive for someone new to machining.

Roy

Thanks mate! I still have a lot to learn though.

 

[SidebarSam]

Since I last posted I had a lot of success with the Abloy tool, in fact I've picked open all of the Abloy Classic locks that I currently have. The tool works better than I could have imagined.

With the success of the Classic tool I started the search to find another lock that I could make a tool for. After disassembling and examining the rest of the Abloy lineup I decided to start building a tool for the Abloy DiskLock Pro. The tool is close to completion, but I reached a point that I wanted to ask some advice before I proceed.

Here are some pictures showing the progress of this project..

Test Fitting Tensioner Tip

Begining of turning the 1.3mm shaft of the tensioner

DiskLock Pro Key, Tensioner complete, and the start of the picking portion of the tool

The 1.5mm hole needs to be about twice the length of the key bidding

This is where I would need to drill the 1.5mm hole a minimum of 3" deep

So I'm at a point where I need to drill a 1.5mm hole into material a minimum of 3" deep on the lathe. Ideally this hole should be 4-4.5" deep, but I can make a functional tool with 3". The issue is that the 1.5mm drill bits have a little less than an inch of flute to work with. So even if I drill both ends that leaves me with a little less than two inches. Right now the only idea I have around this is to drill the front portion of the pick with the 1.5mm drill bit, than I drill the back with something larger/deeper like a 3mm drill bit. Then I create brass spacers (The spacers would be the length of the 1.5mm flute, and would be 3mm OD and 1.5mm ID.) The spacers would fill the empty space left by the larger drill bit and center the pick portion of the tool inside the the tensioner portion.

Does anyone know how I would go about drilling deeper holes with tiny drill bits?

Also just drilling the holes can be a problem for me, many times the drill bit will just spin freely in the drill chuck as I gently push it into the 1144 steel. Right now I'm using the standard drill chuck that my LMS lathe came with. I've done some research on tooling that could aid me in drilling tiny holes. Things such as smaller drill chucks, and sensitive finger feed drill chucks.

Would anyone of you recommend these tools or anything else that I may have overlooked?


Thanks guys, any help is appreciated!