Captain Contributor / Pick Synthesis Fabrication Process Execution Specialist / Global Moderator
Posts: 522
Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:05 pm
Location: United States
I picked another Medeco! Looking to give and recieve info.
Background:
Over the last several weeks I have really gotten into Medecos. I now have six Medecos in my possession with two more on the way. I have read quite a bit of information on them but I have also tried to come to my own conclusions based on my own personal observations and compare them to what others are saying. I am a firm believer that having as much information as possible is very important but there is no substitute for hands on experience.
Working my way up:
I have been trying to pick all of these locks progressively. That is: Try to pick a lock with all pins and no sidebar to determine the binding order then take out some pins, put in the sidebar and work my way up to a fully populated lock.
Observations:
The first thing I noticed is that a Medeco is very easy to pick without the sidebar! Maybe not a big surprise to some but I keep hearing about Medecos tight tolerances so I assumed that a six pin lock with three mushroom pins and tight tolerances would be hard to pick even without the sidebar, but it is not. I'm not trying to be arrogant, just honest. I believe that anyone who spends any time at all picking a Medeco without the sidebar would agree with me.
The next thing I noticed is that setting a pin feels significantly different when the sidebar is in the lock. When the sidebar is installed, a pin has two different feels to it when it sets. Sometimes there is the standard click that we are all used to and sometimes it is more of a muffled click that sounds more like a 'cluck'. Its kinda hard to describe but if you are picking one you'll know what I'm talking about when you experience it. The 'normal' click is what I get when a pin sets to the shear line and is already rotated properly. The 'cluck' is a pin setting but not rotated properly (deal with it later).
The biggest difference I have noticed with having the sidebar in place is the false set. With no sidebar, the false set is quite pronounced with significant counter-rotation on your tension when setting the following pins. The sidebar does not allow such a huge false set so I was constantly oversetting pins because I was looking for the huge false set that I was getting when the sidebar was out. This actually makes the rest of the pins even easier to set once you know what you are looking for.
I recommend top keyway tension. I still suck at it but the extra room it gives for maneuvering a hook to rotate the pins is all the reason in the world for me to use it. I know plenty of people have picked Medecos using bottom keyway tension but for me I like the extra room.
After the pins are set to the shear line all that is left is aligning with the sidebar. I improvised a pin rotating tool (a very rough Medecoder) that catches the grooves in the keypins to rotate them but I have had more success just using my pick to rotate the pins with a combination of intentional force applied to individual pins and the occasional aggressive raking.
I'm sure I've forgotten to include a lot of things but these are the thoughts I have right now. I hope this helps someone. I also hope that if I have misunderstood something or have misspoken that someone will correct me. I'm an amateur hobbyist. I know that I have a lot to learn and that there will be plenty of incorrect assumptions made along the way but I don't want to keep all of my thoughts to myself so maybe someone out there will help steer me in the right direction and maybe I can help someone along the way too.