.:: Keypicking :: Anything And Everything For Locksmiths, Hobbyist Lock Pickers, Locksport, Lock Picking, lockpicks, cutaways and Security. Simply The Best Lockpicking Forum Around!

German Lock Box

Was asked by some lockie friends to open/make a key for this box. Wish it was mine.



May not look all that exciting, but there were a couple things I liked about it.

First, had to pick it open. Good old music wire to the rescue again.



Open! (Contents of lock box removed for customer privacy)



What is up with that little door on the bottom?



Battery? What does this thing use a battery for? Well, let’s take a look.



Huh? That 12 volt battery looks a little old to me. Well, what does it power? (More accurately, what did it power when it did work? To find out, we remove that ‘false bottom’…



A lock box with a built-in alarm! Not exactly new technology, but cool nonetheless.

Alarm on: (if the battery were any good)



Alarm off: (Whether the battery is good or not)



OK, gotta make a key.



Uh… no blanks like that. Well, from picking, already know the levers are only on the top. So, no blanks… time to improvise. Stainless steel tubing should do the trick.



OK, cut a slot and make a flag. Then bend the rest of the tube around a small screwdriver to fit around the post.



Use a marker, since steel don’t make too good impression marks. Look at the marks. Hey, four clearly defined levers!



Better draw lines to roughly see where the cuts will go.



Use marker, insert, turn a couple of times.



Working our way down.



Once a working prototype key is working, let’s see what is supposed to be happening. Remove the lock!



The last section of the bolt movement is spring loaded. Here it is in the fully retracted mode.



Here are the four levers:



Have a cold, so not feeling like taking all night for the write-up. Shortened story - figured out that could make the lock operate with a furniture lock key blank from a hardware store, cut to size for blade height and thickness, then for the bits. Final key:



This lock was set up for a dual bitted key, so the key has to be turned one and a half rotations to fully lock or unlock. But not a bad ending, and the box will go back to my friends tomorrow, who will return it to their customer.

Have a good one, guys and gals,

Gordon

Damn! Very cool. And VERY nice job.

Ya know, lol, even the simplest of lever locks still taunt me.
I've never tried picking them! So as easy as SOME of them
might be, they're just completely foreign to me.

Is it piano wire? What diameters of this music wire would you recommend I buy?

Interesting box and great pics as well as a top job

The only time I locked valuables in a locked box - some SOB stole the box

At the time I was young and stupid as opposed to now - old and stupid !!!

After that, I got a locked box put in some scraps of paper and a couple of coins and kept my valuables elsewhere.


Oldfast.

I’m sure that GW will give you more exact info re: the diameter of the piano wire.

My two cents – The leavers on different lever locks are of different thicknesses so the diameter of the wire should be equal to or (preferably) slightly thinner that the width of the leavers. Else you will be lifting two leavers.

If you have some lever locks that you are going to have a crack at and you have the keys, measure the thickness of the biting (fingers) on the keys.

The most common sizes are 9, 10 12 and 15 mm. At least these are the sizes that commercial Hobbs picks come in. Grind to 9mm and you should have them all covered.

On the few lever locks that I have opened I used bicycle spokes and ground them down to size.

Like I said. I don’t have a lot of experience with leavers but I have opened about seven or eight of them with spokes. I used the keys to check the thickness of the wire and they were not exactly high sec lever locks. A couple did had five levers though.

Lots of fun. You will need a vice (or three hands).

Cheers.

Very cool box and very cool project
A pity the box isn't yours it would be th absolutely coolest way to store some locks.


Get better soon

Great work! Inspiring key blank improvisation going on there.

@ARF-GEF - wearing gloves because the items inside the lock box were ones I would not like to have my fingerprints on. Once I opened the box and saw the contents, put on gloves before doing anything else.

Gordon

Contraband? guns? drugs? Don't taunt us! PS, very cool work once again!

Nothing illegal. Just did not want my prints on the contents.

Gordon