On 5/26/07, Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Or real madmen with a lathe/mill and a dividing
head can machine it
themselves from metal tubing ;-)
My brother is a locksmith... he machined himself a 7-position tubular
_lockpick_... 7 feelers and a restriction collet - you sort of twist
I've seen pictures of them and know the principle.
and press in a particular motion, and the feelers
eventually (60
seconds?) slide to the right positions to open the lock. One thing
that's cooler than picking an ordinary pin-tumbler lock is that you
can take the tubular lock pick to a tubular key cutter and make a
"real" key from it.
Or measure the depths of the feelers to determine the key code.
Of coruser if (as with DEC equipment) you can remove the lock without
picking it,. you can often dismantle the lock from the rear, extract the
tumbllers and measure them with a micrometer. And then cut the key from
that data.
-tony