How to Design an Unpickable Lock

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That cardboard "manufacturing defects" visualization was a genuine epiphany for me as to why locks are pickable

Great use of CAD (cardboard-aided design)

Lock Picking Lawyer: Hold all my beers.

Locksmith here, there are locks that are EXTREMELY hard to pick. The issue is price, people aren't willing to spend a hundred dollars or more on a basic lock. Not to mention installation, servicing, etc. The more pins, the more something can go wrong. Just one master pin can greatly reduce the pinning arrangements, I could make a "unpickable" at my shop. The issue is you wouldn't buy it, you might think you would. But you won't. People don't even want to pay for basic security pins, they WILL NOT pay for some hyper advanced lock. We sell Abloy locks, extremely high quality obscene pick resistance for a few hundred. And we also sell commercial master locks with pretty trivial pick resistance. We sell dozens of Masters a month, I've not seen a single Abloy sell in the last 2 months

"You are using a built different designs homemade lock, it can be opened using a built different desings homemade lock"

I have never seen such a clear and practical demonstration of how lockpicking works than with your cardboard and hole saws.

3:22 This is the best explanation of lockpicking I've seen.

The issue with locks is - they serve the same purpose as a seal sticker. They are a "no one has tampered with this" device rather then a "no one has access to this" device. Because usually you can just use a crowbar and bypass the lock. It's just that it leaves marks. There is very few need for something that cannot properly protect against someone getting in, but just makes sure they when you come back and see it you know no one has been here. Let's face it - the only time you won't know if someone picked your lock would be if they were very professional at whatever they tried to do behind that door. If your place get's robbed, it makes little difference to you if they unlocked your front door with a lock pick or a crowbar.

I have been a locksmith for 40 years -- the two cylinder technique has been patented by Corbin, and is known as master ring masterkeying. A similar technique was patented by Best - both were almost 100 years old when I was an apprentice . The false hole is also nothing new -- it is called a trap key cylinder. If you employ that technique, you have to have another way to open the lock, so you can free the trapped key or core.

Hello you may have discovered this already, but with resin printing you will benefit from getting a small uv light off Amazon to further cure your prints after printing. It's possible that some of the sticking you're experiencing is due to the slight tackiness of resin that isn't 100% cured. Great video!

okay that taught me more about picking than I ever was able to grasp. 1:34 - 4:04

The first 3 minutes really helped cement my understanding of why pins "bind" - excellent video!

3minutes in and this is the best simolified visualisation i’ve seen on why cheap locks are pickable, regardless of “pick-proofing” techniques such as the use of spools and such.

Honestly after this video I feel like I could lock pick now, not the intended effect but the visuals are so helpful for explaining how it all works

At a guess, you could still bind the pins by applying forwards pressure against your cam plate, but it's definitely an interesting design! The thing about locks is they're more of a psychological barrier than a physical one. A glass door with a "NO ENTRY" sign is as secure as your inability to throw a rock through the glass. The goal is to encourage typical people to not interact with the locked item, and to be suspicious of atypical people who do anyway.

More important than being unpickable, does it work at a wide range of temperatures as well as dust, moisture and dirt conditions? The fact that the conventional types are still on the market is an indication that being unpickable in NOT a primary concern.

Your cardboard visualization of how lockpicking works is by far the best demonstration of stacking tolerances I have ever seen. Fuckin fantastic work dude.

This is an ASTOUNDINGLY brilliant design. I've been thinking about the same problem for months and you just blew all my designs out of the water. I hope you patented this!

This is the best demonstration of why key way tension works that I have seen. It explained everything about picking that I have wondered about. Thank you.