Tue May 20, 2014 11:40 am
S&G 6700 taught me a lesson
Hey guys,
The past few days I've been playing with one of my 6700's after my wife put in a new combination for me. It is AMAZING how the personality of a lock can change just with a new combination! This lock has always been pretty straight forward to open. W3 always indicates first, then W2, and BF W1. It's almost become routine to open.
Almost.
After the last combination change, I started with the new technique I've been testing where I start AWR every ten increments on the tens, find the low spot, park W1 and W2 on that spot, then spin W3 in isolation AL. It's worked well several times, but not the last two times, both with my S&G's. I'm only posting the details of the most recent attempt but both were somewhat similar.
I spin W3 AL in isolation and get nothing. I spin it AR and get nothing. I go back to the basics and spin AWR every 2.5. Again, I get nothing. Finally, AWL reveals a gate at 11. As many of you know, I am NOT a fan of High/Low testing as I've gotten inconsistent results, but I gave it a shot. Low tests were inconclusive, showing identical bad readings for W1 and W3. High testing was only slightly better, indicating W1 over W2 by 1/8th of an increment.
I tagged 11 to W1 based on the fact that both tests indicated W1 was a possibility, and the high test pointed to W1 ever-so-slightly. Plus, I like it when W1 indicates first since you can pretty much park it and forget it.
W1 gets parked at L11 and I decide to go with W2 and W3 AL instead of isolating. I didn't get any good indications, so I tried going AR. Still nothing. NOW I isolate, and after getting nothing from W3 going AL, I FINALLY get an indication at 13 going AR. I'm only spinning W3 so I know that the last number is L14 due to the rotational differences in the lock. With two numbers, the rest is easy.
Well, it's supposed to be easy. I tried BF on W2 and couldn't get the lock to open. I know what I should have done at this point but didn't do it. The more experienced guys will know what I'm talking about and I'll reveal it at the end, but instead of doing that, I decided to redo the High/Low testing to see if I was correct about W1. I got the same results, so to be sure, I isolated W1 and W2 to try and get a positive indication. I tried parking the other wheel at four different places around the dial while doing so and could not get a good result. I even tried high/low testing with all wheels in the same direction (A technique discussed by Oldfast in another post) and got the same results. Since the high test indicated W1 just a bit in all of the high testing, I stuck with it. Maybe I mis-dialed when trying to BF W2, so I tried that again with no opening.
At this point I'm feeling a little frustrated so I broke down and told my wife (and official keeper of the combos since she changes them for me) that I had two numbers, which wheels they were on, and was I close. This sucked for me because I've only ever had to do this one other time, and that was very early on in my learning process.
I did have two numbers correct, but, you guessed it, one of them was on the wrong wheel. Since I knew the third number was correct, obviously the number I had tagged to W1 belonged to W2. BF W1 and it opened at 94.
What I should have done after trying to BF W2 and the lock didn't open is immediately try BF on W1, putting my known number on W2 instead. That would have saved a bunch of time and frustration. I didn't do that.
We've all got a bunch of tools in our toolbox that we pull out when the time is right and try to beat the lock. I left my brain in the shed on this one, and that really needs to be the tool you always go to first. Instead of being so focused on getting the lock to prove something to me, I should have simply made the most obvious and simple choice and placed my known number on the only other wheel it could be on.
I hate being stupid, but I learned from the experience.
-Mike
The past few days I've been playing with one of my 6700's after my wife put in a new combination for me. It is AMAZING how the personality of a lock can change just with a new combination! This lock has always been pretty straight forward to open. W3 always indicates first, then W2, and BF W1. It's almost become routine to open.
Almost.
After the last combination change, I started with the new technique I've been testing where I start AWR every ten increments on the tens, find the low spot, park W1 and W2 on that spot, then spin W3 in isolation AL. It's worked well several times, but not the last two times, both with my S&G's. I'm only posting the details of the most recent attempt but both were somewhat similar.
I spin W3 AL in isolation and get nothing. I spin it AR and get nothing. I go back to the basics and spin AWR every 2.5. Again, I get nothing. Finally, AWL reveals a gate at 11. As many of you know, I am NOT a fan of High/Low testing as I've gotten inconsistent results, but I gave it a shot. Low tests were inconclusive, showing identical bad readings for W1 and W3. High testing was only slightly better, indicating W1 over W2 by 1/8th of an increment.
I tagged 11 to W1 based on the fact that both tests indicated W1 was a possibility, and the high test pointed to W1 ever-so-slightly. Plus, I like it when W1 indicates first since you can pretty much park it and forget it.
W1 gets parked at L11 and I decide to go with W2 and W3 AL instead of isolating. I didn't get any good indications, so I tried going AR. Still nothing. NOW I isolate, and after getting nothing from W3 going AL, I FINALLY get an indication at 13 going AR. I'm only spinning W3 so I know that the last number is L14 due to the rotational differences in the lock. With two numbers, the rest is easy.
Well, it's supposed to be easy. I tried BF on W2 and couldn't get the lock to open. I know what I should have done at this point but didn't do it. The more experienced guys will know what I'm talking about and I'll reveal it at the end, but instead of doing that, I decided to redo the High/Low testing to see if I was correct about W1. I got the same results, so to be sure, I isolated W1 and W2 to try and get a positive indication. I tried parking the other wheel at four different places around the dial while doing so and could not get a good result. I even tried high/low testing with all wheels in the same direction (A technique discussed by Oldfast in another post) and got the same results. Since the high test indicated W1 just a bit in all of the high testing, I stuck with it. Maybe I mis-dialed when trying to BF W2, so I tried that again with no opening.
At this point I'm feeling a little frustrated so I broke down and told my wife (and official keeper of the combos since she changes them for me) that I had two numbers, which wheels they were on, and was I close. This sucked for me because I've only ever had to do this one other time, and that was very early on in my learning process.
I did have two numbers correct, but, you guessed it, one of them was on the wrong wheel. Since I knew the third number was correct, obviously the number I had tagged to W1 belonged to W2. BF W1 and it opened at 94.
What I should have done after trying to BF W2 and the lock didn't open is immediately try BF on W1, putting my known number on W2 instead. That would have saved a bunch of time and frustration. I didn't do that.
We've all got a bunch of tools in our toolbox that we pull out when the time is right and try to beat the lock. I left my brain in the shed on this one, and that really needs to be the tool you always go to first. Instead of being so focused on getting the lock to prove something to me, I should have simply made the most obvious and simple choice and placed my known number on the only other wheel it could be on.
I hate being stupid, but I learned from the experience.
-Mike
I have an amazing grasp of the obvious. Beyond that, not so much.
