femurat wrote:Well done. How about telling us a little more about this manipulation? Which technique did you use? You had any problem identifying the wheel the gates were on? Are you a pro or a newbie at manipulating safe locks?
I ran all wheels left in order to (hopefully) find a gate going left first. I was graphing at first, but after I found wheel 3's gate I stopped graphing in the interest of time. Probably in the future I'll run the whole cycle AWL for the sake of completeness.
This lock indicated 3-2-1, which was my expectation coming in, so I was able to take advantage by running the wheels in their correct directions so I could dial normally for my last number
This lock has an inherent weakness (see picture): the pin which attaches the latch to the lock housing is a substantial diameter (good), but the pin which connects the latch to the fence/bolt piece has only a small diameter pin. Whenever this has any slop as it did on this lock, the fence tilts upward causing wheel 3 to indicate in a pronounced fashion. I don't yet have enough experience to say whether this is an outlandish issue or not.
The wheels seemed to be almost perfectly round, the major difficulty I had with this was the dial ring. It wasn't securely fastened, and caused friction against the dial.
A personal problem I had was making consistent readings; this seemed to start sorting itself out as I went along. I'm starting to see progress on that front though, which is encouraging
femurat wrote:...I was wondering if you practiced with locks mounted on a stand before.
No I hadn't. The only bit I had done was read up on the process here, and practice on an antique lock (also a Taylor, a 4 wheel with indirect drive) for which I knew the combination. I spent a ridiculous amount of time graphing every index point until I saw how clearly it indicated the first gate (wheel 4). After that I assured myself that I should be able to at least blunder my way along
I just got my first ebay purchase, a LaGard 3330. I've had some successes and some failures; might write about some of them when I'm more confident I know what I'm doing. Trying to get better at strategically parking.