[626] A Pick Proof Master Lock? ALMOST!

this is the lock-picking lawyer and today we're going to be looking at what was almost the most pick resistant master lock ever the model 18 let me start by saying that for the purposes of this video we're going to put aside the normal master lock vulnerabilities things like shimming and wrapping rest-assured those flaws are still present in this lock but we're going to focus in on the core which is really the interesting part you see this padlock is master locks reply to products like the quick-set smart key and Schlage secure key those locks allow a user to quickly and easily rekey a lock without any specialized tools or training this is not of course a standard pin tumbler lock but instead a slider side bar core and even more than that this lock has a reverse side bar what I mean by that is that the side bar is spring biased inwards toward the core rather than outwards toward the lock body it's this inward spring tension that allows you to use a sidebar with squared off rather than beveled edges this is important because when you use a sidebar with squared off edges when you put tension on the core it locks the sidebar in place rather than forcing it inwards and causing it to bind on the sliders now what this also means is that this lock is probably unpickable with the traditional torque and set method now the reverse side bar is not a new concept it was pioneered I believe by General Motors back in the 1930s and to this day I think it remains one of the most pick resistant locks ever put in a car now I'm going full lock nerd right in the house so I'm probably losing some of you so here's what we're gonna do first I'm going to show you what these locks look like on the inside and I'm going to do it with this lock on which I have already chiseled off the rivet heads while we're in there I'm going to show you what I believe to be a flaw in master locks implementation and hopefully we'll be able to put that information to good use and pick this one open but before we do any of that let take a look at how the rekeying system works it's actually very simple all you do is insert the key and turn it 90 degrees that lines up a small hole in the face of the core with a hole in the bottom plate we then put this master lock rekeying tool into that hole and press it in while holding it down you can remove the key and insert a new one and this will take any quick set five pin kW 1k we then remove the retain tool and it should be reset okay let's see what's on the inside of this lock so you can see these locks come apart pretty easily if you chisel off the rivet heads it's actually not hard to do if you put a lock in a vise but very difficult to do if it's out in the wild let's pull this core right out and we don't have to take it apart any further for me to show you what I believe to be the most significant flaw in this lock and right here you can see part of the reverse side bar now what makes reverse side bar so difficult to pick is that there's no way to get the side bar to bind against the sliders because the only thing pushing it inwards is just this tiny little spring clip that goes around the side however master lock left the entire side of the core open what that means is I can take a tool like this one which I made for this task reach around the side of the lock and push in on the side bar and if I can push that in hard enough which is actually not an easy thing to do I can bind the side bar against the sliders and then pick the lock pretty easily now while we're zoomed in here let me show you one key portion of this lock right here you can see a little nub that's actually attached to a cone-shaped locking bar and that locking bar is it has to be moved out of the locking mechanism to get the wreaking function to work and I can show you how that works if you can look very carefully we can rotate this 90 degrees and when it reaches the 12 o'clock position it gets captured by a small plastic lever that lever is actuated by the rekeying tool if you look carefully you'll be able to see it lift that locking bar out there we go okay let's take this apart a little bit more and hopefully you'll be able to appreciate what that does first thing we have to do is remove the driver from the back of this and then we need a c-clip remover as I'm taking this apart I should note that this lock is actually more like the acid twin than any other side bar lock and that's because the bidding for the side bar is actually in the side bar itself rather than in the sliders so when we reprogram this lock we don't reprogram the sliders as is the case with the quick-set smart key what we're doing is reprogramming the side bar and because of that it actually has a huge side bar in here so next let's remove this top cover and that exposes most of the recce mechanism unfortunately it is made out of plastic we have this lever which lifts the cone-shaped locking bar out of place and then a little plastic actuator for that lever now right now the only thing holding this in place is actually this tiny little locking bar because it sticks out from the core so we're gonna have to figure out a way to remove that you can either take this clip off the side which I found is hard to do and nearly impossible to put back the other way to do it is turn it 90 degrees and lift it out from the top now that we've done that we should be able to pull this core right out okay now that we have the core out you can see the huge side bar which dominates the entire left side of the core you can see how this locking bar inserts into the slide side bar and you can also see a little piece back here and this is really important for our picking it's part of the rekeying mechanism and what it does is lock the core in place at the 12 o'clock and nine up and three o'clock position I should say the reason it's there is to make sure you don't accidentally rekey your padlock to no key which would obviously be a problem so what it does is it sticks out just a tiny little bit whenever the key is not fully inserted however what that also means is that we're gonna have to address that when we pick this otherwise even if we set the entire sidebar the core will not turn so there's a tiny little button on the back right side of the key way that we're gonna have to address after we pick the side bar let's take this side bar out and then you should be able to see five moving elements inside of the side bar and those are what set the bidding let's see if we can give you a close-up of that if you look very carefully you can see that they are held from sliding up and down by the four prongs of that comb shaped locking bar so you can see why when you pull that out it would allow those little moving elements to slide up and down and when it's in place you have your bidding locked in and we have the core itself nothing particularly interesting about these sliders you can see they have gates right in the middle of them but other than that they're just flat brass plates that are spring-loaded and ride along the K okay now that we've seen all that let's get to picking and I just say this is an unusual method of picking and because of that I have done it in my hand but it's very difficult to do while giving you any view of the the picking so I'm going to put it in the vise which is going to give you a much better view now the hard part of this whole process is positioning this tool along the side so we can tension it so let's give it a shot I think I have it in place you have to push it in pretty hard and let's see if that's enough to bind the sliders okay I think I have five four two I think we might have gotten it set if so I'll be able to rotate it just a tiny little bit remove that now we have to address that tiny little button I told you about that keeps the core from turning and we got it open so as you can see once you tension that sidebar getting this lock open is not difficult so this has been the master lock number 18 a padlock with lots of potential that I think fell short of the mark the sad part is that with a ball-bearing locking mechanism and some better protection for that sidebar this lock would be competing with locks way above its price point ok that's it for today if you do have any questions or comments about this please put them below if you like this video and would like to see more like it please subscribe and as always have a nice day thank you

Channel: LockPickingLawyer

Views: 2,147,235

Rating: 4.9531107 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: jgWS4TdLFAE

Length: 11min 16sec (676 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 24 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/musamban]

Great explanation - which generation would this be considered to be?

[u/Atgoat2014]

That is really cool, I am not sure that I fully understand how this lock works. Is it kind of like a wafer lock in some respect?

I will definitely be watching this video a few times. It seems though given what’s required to actually pick this lock that it would be fairly secure as there are probably not that many people who could easily pick it without studying it.

Once again you provide a very informative video. Thanks for keeping things interesting.

[u/ChrisAhrens]

Very cool. If this design changed, simply to prevent the shim access to the side bar this just might be a unpickable design. I don't know why master and kwikset leave the side bar open like that. it is a great design. Thanks for showing I didn't realize master had tried this design

[u/vff]

Would this become "unpickable" if that bottom plate you removed simply didn't have as big of a diameter hole in it for the core?