Raking or bumping lever locks ?.

[Magic1]

Someones signature line got me thinking about whether it was possible to open lever locks without single lever picking, ie. by bumping or raking ?. I guess most would say definitely not ... so that makes a good starting point !. The first question, is why not ?. The second question is has anyone tried it ?.

[barbarian]

I saw a video somewhere. Maybe here..

A guy sort of bumped open a lever lock. He said it worked very well on a lock where the customers key is worn down and no longer functions.

As I remember he turned the key till it stopped and then tapped a couple of times with the bump hammer.

Perhaps a rotary raking method, rather than an in and out method might work. If you could spin the "key" quickly, perhaps like a plug spinner would do.

Might work..

[elbowmacaroni]

Bumping doesn't really make sense in a lever lock though. Bumping is dependent on there being a kinetic energy transfer from the keypins to the drivers. The most used example and an apropos one is that of the a cue ball striking another ball. The idea is that the keypins all kick up the drivers all at the same time and then the tension can catch the drivers as they fall back down. As a lever lock works on a different mechanical principal that a pin tumbler, I don't see how the mechanics of bumping could work.

[Magic1]

"Perhaps a rotary raking method". I salute you Barbarian , a man after my own heart Hi!. Yes that was my first thought sparked off by the flail tank for exploding mines. In the case of the tank, chains are rotated. In side a lock the flails could be any material softer than the steel wafers. If the flails were flexible, the disc they formed when rotating, could be self balancing. The key hole is at least the key blade height and if the flails are flexible they could enter the lock. Anyone want to take that further ?.

We can bump into people but that does not mean that we have to do so with an acceleration in excess of 1G, because it would leave too many bodies laying around. . In this case we are not looking for a Newtons Third Law transference of energy (the ball analogy) but merely to make the levers bounce up, in a random manner. Random, because the profile of the underside of the levers is also random. A straight flail profile would merely strike the levers upwards together , making it difficult for the bolt to clear the slots in the levers.

There are also possibilities in raising the pack of wafers together ... at a point where the gates are all at the same height, ie the top edge of the slots in the levers. On youtube there is a video of a wiper blade being used to manually raise all levers at the same time, with a tool that actually fits into the 'open' side of the gate.

Why did I put this in the banter section ?. Well, it was very much like fishing ... I baited the hook, threw it into the pond and then watched the view indicator to see how many bites I got Hi!. Perhaps now, the suggestion does not sound quite so crazy ? .......

[elbowmacaroni]

Well, except that lock bumping has a specific definition as to a certain mechanical action. Hence, while an interesting line of thought, this (w)should be called something else.

[elbowmacaroni]

Maybe levumping?

[Magic1]

"Well, except that lock bumping has a specific definition as to a certain mechanical action"

Can I assume that you are referring to a bump key and a hammer ?. It would appear that the use of the word "Bumping" now has many meanings. If we confine ourselves to lock opening, it still has more than one meaning, in common use. The most common one covers the bump key and hammer and beginners generally tend to think of that as "Bumping". However when we move on to safes and some other devices the term bumping is used, certainly in UK, to indicate an opening process that does not involve a key or even in some cases a hammer and is simply called "Bumping an electronic safe". This is can be effected by lifting the front of the safe and then dropping it a few inches, and relies on Newtons First Law, rather than Newtons Third Law.

For the sake of argument I would suggest that the 'rotary' method mentioned is more aptly covered by the term "Bumping" than "Raking". Either way I find a hammer more effective in opening locks, than semantics . I am quite happy if you want to call any potential method "Something Else" ... or even "levumping". OK, now how do we go about sticking the Black and Decker Pecker Wrecker into the lock and what are we going to use as a flail ?.

(Thinks ... thank goodness it is a booze night tonight , I just cannot function sober any more ... )

[barbarian]

What if we slowed down the flail ?

Imagine a Hobbs pick hooked to a small motor. This is how it might work.

Lets think about a two lever lock to make it simple. The pick would have a "shaft" with three arms on the end and the motor unit on the other. One arm cycles from zero to
max lift (say 180 degrees) at a rate of say one cycle per minute while the other arm moves at close to twice that rate. Meanwhile the arm tensioning the lock is pulsed or
vibrated at something like one pulse every second. Perhaps the user could just wiggle the entire tool to apply tension by hand. You stick this in the lock and press "go" As the arms work their
way around, the device will try all the combinations of lever positions to open the lock.

Each shaft would be easily interchangeable and optimized for a certain lock or number of levers.

The motor unit could have several fixed gear ratio drives available that may or may not be used depending on the number of arms on the different shafts.

If you were not holding constant tension, then the force required to lift one lever should be manageable by the arms. Now put some smarts into it so that it knows the best rate to
cycle everything, and the best frequency and force for tension.

Sounds like a pick gun for levers.

Thoughts ??

[elbowmacaroni]

Well, my point is that the dilution of a term leads to making things more confusing for people, especially those who are new to the hobby/sport/profession. My suggestion of a different term is to try to not muddy the waters for those people. People do come to this site (and others) to learn, and misusing a term can cause them to miscommunicate to others later, or potentially be the subject of unwarranted flaming (on some sites.)

That said, I do understand your position that it is "bumpy" in nature as a device that did this would be striking the lever pack, but as it relies on a different principal a new name for a new technique just seems apropos, rather than broadening the definition of an existing industry term. Also, I'd have to say that "bumping" a safe is more slang than a proper industry term (you pros out there please correct me if I'm incorrect in my assessment of that.)

I'm not trying to pick on you here, but just attempting to keep things clear for others. As I said, I do think this idea has merit and is most definitely worth exploring. Hell, if you come up with a good tool for this (and from having read alot of your website, I've no doubt that you could [speaking of which, it would be cool if you'd add it back to your profile as you have a lot of interesting content]) you could and should be known for developing the new technique and all the fame and glory that accompanies that. Maybe even keeping the "bumping" but qualifying it as "lever bumping" would be more clear as then it differentiates between the principals involved.

[Magic1]

Lost another post !.

Admin. This started off as Banter, but it now appears to be getting a little more serious, so could it be moved to Research please.

To everyone else. Barbarian and myself are 'brain storming' a well know problem solving industrial design technique. Brain storming has to be conducted in accordance with a set of rules. First a problem is presented to the group and there after each person takes it in turn to say something. There is only one rule and that is only ideas must be presented and not criticism. In a good group comments are short and do not have to sound sensible to anyone. For example we were once brain storming an optical commutator system for the analysis of disease in human blood and one guy said, "Paint it yellow and turn it upside down". Six months later that comment saved the company £3 million pounds. Don't knock it, join in !.

Yes I agree with what you say and everything is do-able from an electronic point of view. Take a look at Sweep1 in my video's and you can see the general approach. Work on ten pulses per second for a stepper motor with 100 or 200 steps per revolution.

I only have one very cheap (£5) mortise lock and that is the sum of my experience. I am concerned about accurately placing the picking finger on a floppy lever stack, with lots of sideways play. I am wondering if , levers and spacers have a standard thickness. If that were so, then perhaps the two edges of the lever stack could be used as reference points.

Does anyone know off hand how many combination's does a five lever lock have ?.

Maybe could use the shank hole in the key way for the co-axial picks and the blade slot for the tension-er. It is going to get very tight to get five picks co-axially. A possible solution is to use a bundle of pick wires, but again I am concerned about placement accuracy.

Seems we are now following two paths, a rotary 'bumping' approach and a microprocessor programmed to step through all possible combination's of five lever, multi-bite depth positions.

I have some beautiful Chubb nine pin brass keys in front of me, that are crying out for attention Hi!.

[Magic1]

@Admin.

I see I started lock picking on February the 10th this year, so by my reckoning I am a beginner myself. To my simple mind ... people bump people, cars bump cars, posters bump themes and although you will not find it in either Websters dictionary or the Oxford dictionary, people also bump cylinder locks and safes, as well as prices and people ego's. What is so complicated about something, that even I can understand ?. What I do not understand is why semantics are suddenly far more important than locks ?.

I am old enough to know that one can never win an argument with admin , so that is it !. I am out of here !. I would like to say thank you to all you chaps who did make me feel at home.

[elbowmacaroni]

Magic1, at your request this has been moved to research.

I really do believe you are taking what I am saying wrong and clearly personally. It is certainly not personal, as far as semantics go, it is important that people agree upon meanings for terms or how can you communicate effectively? Whatever, this isn't really worth prattling back and forth about. Also, from having read your website, it sure seems you are far smarter than the average bear.

In addition, I have repeatedly stated I believe this idea has merit, so please don't just cut and run because you don't agree with me on a point of language.

[barbarian]

.....ten pulses per second for a stepper motor with 100 or 200 steps per revolution.

Stepper motor seems so logical now that you say it.. Great idea..

..... I am wondering if , levers and spacers have a standard thickness. If that were so, then perhaps the two edges of the lever stack could be used as reference points.

I don't know if all lever locks are standard, I bet not. But for a given lock model and maker I bet they are. So does this mean we could measure a brand X lock and customize the tool for it, Then change the tool spacing somehow for different locks??

.....Does anyone know off hand how many combination's does a five lever lock have ?.

This would be the different depths available to cut on the key. Do we need to know this ? Will we be moving the levers in definite steps or just a slow progression ? Perhaps slow progression would make the tool more versatile, while definite steps might open the lock faster ?

.....Maybe could use the shank hole in the key way for the co-axial picks and the blade slot for the tension-er. It is going to get very tight to get five picks co-axially. A possible solution is to use a bundle of pick wires, but again I am concerned about placement accuracy.

Hmmm.. The simple locks would be easy to pick by hand without this tool. Anything that we try to use this tool on would be higher security. More levers, false gates and notches, a curtain for sure. Room inside the lock might be a problem.. But the locks would probably be better built with tighter tolerances and less slop inside.

[the lockpickkid]

You may be able to make a lever bump method that would work, but my thinking, and just my opinion, would be that you may be able to throw the levers up, but to catch each of them in the individual gates I think would be hard, especially with say, safe deposit locks, I use these as an example because I know more of how they work. For these locks, I think it would be hard to bump them because of the security feature, false gates, some but not all I have seen have false gates, if you managed to bump the levers to where they fly up, I don't think you would catch the gate all the time, they would hang on the false gates. Thats just my thinking. I also know from playing with them that once you get a lever in a false gate when you go to take it out, you lose your other levers.

[dgtlcrack]

I think the term you are looking to describe this "new" method would be lever lock manipulating.

And as for opening a lever lock with out a key the most versatile solution is impressioning a key.