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mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Sat Jul 08, 2017 6:57 pm
by mdc5150
So rather than create a whole bunch of new posts to track my progress I am making one post to add to.

Last weekend was awesome getting the safe at the shop open, it was a real confidence booster. I have been practicing at home on a small safe door with a 6730 on it and I have been able to get it every time a combo has been set. This morning I opened it while free spinning for the first time and pretty quickly.

Two days ago I went out on my first attempt to manipulate a safe for a customer. The safe was an Amsec Amvault with a 6730 on it. I set up at 6am and started spinning.
It was very difficult to hear the contact points even with the amplifier. The first thing that worried me was that the contact points seemed to be wildly different from one increment to another. When I got to 58 on my first graph I thought maybe that was it but I kept my head and remembered I am as green as it gets still and kept making my graph. At the end I was fairly positive 58 was still my number and proceeded to start on graph 2.

JulyX6XgraphX1.jpg


So graph 2 was even more frustrating that 1. Increments showed the contact points varying as wildly as 7 numbers, it blew my mind. At the end of that graph I wasn't sure of anything.

JulyX6XgraphX2.jpg


Not knowing what to think at this point I went AWL at increments of 2 and measured. 46 seemed to catch my eye but it was only because the right contact point was consistently lower here. I went AWR and got the same thing but in my mind at the time (in the customers garage it was about 105 degrees at 6am and I was sweating and frustrated) it still was not significant enough to pursue. I will kick myself for that mistake for a long time to come.

I had a two hour time limit to work on the safe and had to call in my coworker to bring the drilling equipment down. We drilled a hole and scoped the change key hole. The combo ended up being 12-46-58. But I ran out of time and had already defeated myself. Even though the graph didn't quite support 46 all the well I should have run it down.

The customer was thrilled because we didn't have to drill the lock it's self and we charged him a minimum amount for drilling since I had been out there in his garage for a couple hours.

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Sun Jul 09, 2017 3:43 am
by jharveee
I think if you had a little more time, you would have spun this safe open.
Graph #2 seems to show an indication at 10. Which turned out to be 12 on wheel 1.
All of this is Monday morning Quater-backing.
Had you more time, you could have amplified your good areas(on graph 2) and ran some High/Low tests.
Fighting the demands of Heat, time limits and erratic graph readings you were still able to pull out enough information to get this safe open.
Next time maybe you will find yourself under the stairs or in a bed room closet, cramped, dark. But cooler.?

Something I do, that may be of help. Is to draw a line connecting the dots on my graph. It gives me a better visual. Lets my mind see whats going on.
Great job, thanks for sharing.

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Sun Jul 09, 2017 5:00 am
by Jaakko Fagerlund
I'm confused a little bit, so would like clarification: Do you not go by touch but by sound only with the contact points?

In the graphs jharveee makes a good point (well, a line) to connect the dots. This would have been immediately obvious that the numbers were all there, as on many 6730's I've opened I've seen drastic 1 number changes in contact points, while on some others I've seen only 0.2 number changes.

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Sun Jul 09, 2017 5:53 am
by MartinHewitt
This line is important to me too. I only make a dot and then connect it

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Sun Jul 09, 2017 7:49 am
by mdc5150
Jaakko Fagerlund wrote:I'm confused a little bit, so would like clarification: Do you not go by touch but by sound only with the contact points?


I did not go purely by sound, but at many times there was no feel and only sound on the right contact. I even used one finger with a very light touch and could not feel the contact let alone feel any drag. One thing I did not mention is that I did get a chance to inspect the lock and it looked like whoever owned the safe before this guy would spin the dial as hard as they could. The right contact had a flat spot on it from being slammed. This is probably part of the reason for the wild contact readings.

I will start drawing lines on my graphs. I appreciate the tip and it makes sense.

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Sun Jul 09, 2017 5:32 pm
by tarboxb
Congratulations on the free-spin! I personally love free-spinning. Since I started doing it that is all I have done other than the Yale OC-5 I manipulated. The indications were so small, strange, and inconsistent that a graph was virtually mandatory.

Brandan

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Sun Jul 09, 2017 8:51 pm
by tarboxb
Thinking about your extremely varied readings, I wonder if you were actually getting contact at all during the times you thought the right contact point was moving wildly. I have seen some locks where a wheel's hole is not centered or something and in some positions the lever never actually touches the drive cam gate at all. I would say that if you cannot feel ANYTHING there likely is no contact occurring at that point. If this happens you just have to write it off as an extremely high spot and move on for the time being. You need to figure out where the high spot is and get it out of the way so your contact points and indications come back.

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Sun Jul 09, 2017 11:32 pm
by mdc5150
I bought a laser gun sight for $11 from Amazon because it had a on/off button rather than a momentary button. I used steel stick for the base and used a hot glue.gun to attach it to the dial.

20170709_221550.jpg

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:22 am
by femurat
Nice and simple setup. I still have to try something like that. For now my eyes are enough to graph in tenths, but won't be like this forever.

About connecting the dots on a graph, I recently started connecting only the dots on the same line, so I don't have to look at them. This way the different dots are empathized and easier to see. I hope to put up one of these graphs on my 6642 thread as soon as possible.

Cheers :)

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 1:51 pm
by MartinHewitt
mdc5150 wrote:I bought a laser gun sight for $11 from Amazon because it had a on/off button rather than a momentary button.

Could you please provide a link to that laser? I am looking for something like that. But if it is really a laser for a gun, it might be illegal here.

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 2:12 pm
by mdc5150
MartinHewitt wrote:
mdc5150 wrote:I bought a laser gun sight for $11 from Amazon because it had a on/off button rather than a momentary button.

Could you please provide a link to that laser? I am looking for something like that. But if it is really a laser for a gun, it might be illegal here.


Here you go.
Vokul Hot Tactical Red Laser Beam Dot Sight Scope for Gun Rifle Pistol Picatinny Mount http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X356WZQ/ref ... 266NtAbKgm

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Mon Jul 10, 2017 2:21 pm
by MartinHewitt
Thanks!

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Sat Aug 05, 2017 2:15 pm
by mdc5150
So last weekend I sat down to get started on a 6730 my coworker set up for me. I found the first number (wheel 3) 58 soon enough. It was not a strong indication but it was literally my only indication. I set about going for my next number and got a huge indication at 37 1/2. I thought it must be wheel 2 by how deep it was and trying my 2 tests to see which wheel it was on. There was no difference between the two tests. So I assumed it was wheel 2 and tried running combos. I got frustrated when nothing worked and I ran out of time.

Today I thought about it and decided it was a good idea to run an AWL and see what happens. I got a really good indication at 22 1/2. So I ran 37 1/2 as the first number with 22 1/2 as the second number and with just a little oscillation I finally got it.

I got fixated on finding another number and assumed 37 1/2 had to be my second number because of how deep it was. That was a mistake and now I have learned not to assume and to run an AWL or AWR if I am getting stuck.

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 4:42 pm
by Oldfast
Matt, it's so damn nice to see you getting some spin-time in!
Very nice job on the latest. So exciting when that fence drops, eh?!
Changing direction in order to get something new to pop at you. Nice.

mdc5150 wrote:..... I found the first number (wheel 3) 58 soon enough. It was not a strong indication but it was literally my only indication. I set about going for my next number and got a huge indication at 37 1/2. I thought it must be wheel 2 by how deep it was and trying my 2 tests to see which wheel it was on. There was no difference between the two tests. .....

When traditional high/low tests give no results... isolation (though not foolproof) is another option. Especially nice in this scenario, considering you've already located a gate (58) for w3. So run only w2 through the area in question (37) while parking wheels 1&3 @ 58. See if the drop occurs. If not, run w1 through 37 while parking 2&3 @ 58.

Sometimes the difficult part is not locating a gate, but definitively tagging it to a wheel. Isolation is nothing perfect either... just another somethin' to throw at the lock. Spin on my good friend... spin on :D

Re: mdc5150's Manipulation Steps and Missteps

PostPosted: Fri Aug 25, 2017 6:59 pm
by mdc5150
Mike thanks for the reply! You have mot been around for a while.