Decoding Multi-Wheel Locks with a Mini Knife

so multiwheel combination locks of the style found on a lock box like this I've had a few questions about these from friends recently obviously you know we've got a key in here right well if you don't know the combination how are you gonna get it out let's say you put in the combination that you think is correct but oh no it's not working anymore alright one two three four the hardest combination oh no it's not releasing well what can we do well you could just try to brute force your way through all the combinations right it's not the biggest key space in the world but that would be annoying that would take some time and it's not really necessary if you want to get into one of these given that we can use decoding tools to drastically reduce the numbers we have to search these little multi wheel locks how do they actually work on the inside well if we were to take a look at an image like this this is sort of one of those fancy briefcases that used to be ever so popular back in the 70s and 80s they're brushed aluminum you'd see them in detective shows you know full of cocaine and illegal money well here we are looking at the lock mechanism shining a little light on there using a tool to inch one of the wheels slightly to the side now you can see the wheels are rotating around a little central axle right highlighted in red here and that axle in real life when not highlighted is this luster II grey color now next to the six and the zeros as well there's nothing really prominent or noticeable on that axle but if we were to rotate this wheel around a little further for instance next to the two what do we see now what's that it's like a little slot a little divot is right there present on the axle and this in fact is very common on multi wheel combination locks the axle itself the wheel is rotating around a central component that is not uniform now sometimes there's a slot or a divot sometimes it's a flat spot but these non-uniform elements on the wheels tend to correspond in some way to their construction design and the way they ultimately interact with a release mechanism of some sort now what does this mean for our purposes well first of all if you can just slide the wheels to the side like you can in this photo and see the divots well you can line those up just visually even if you can't do that however you can use a thin tool and that's illustrated in this animation I don't know where this animation originally came from I think it was from a talk I once saw the Schuyler town had given but whatever tool you get whatever this animation originally came from it really illustrates this so well a really thin tool of metal or or thin stock can slide down next to the wheels and even if you can't see those divots you can rotate the wheel and find them by feel so here we are now on the second wheel rotating around trying to find the same thing we found on the first wheel whether it's a big slot a little slot a flat point now notice we're not necessarily unlocking the lock right now but if we can get whatever that divot or on gun uniform bit is lined up we can then try the release mechanism and try rotating all the wheels in concert with one another one step at a time once we've lined up the divots then we know just walking the wheels around enough should be sufficient to open the mechanism to open the lock let's see if that can work with our combination lock that we have here now in that video you sort of see a locksmith using an old Weiser shim it's just a little squared off stock of very thin metal that's something that you might have in your kit if you have old enough supplies personally most of our students wind up using this very small tool very that an O one five I believe this is sometimes called an easy decoder you'll sometimes hear these referred to as mini knives named after the Peterson tools mini knife also really just so so thin but robust this is probably the nicest tool out there that you can get in terms of durability you can see that my little ez decoder here has had some hot suppers but it's still going to work for us if none of those are in your bag well maybe you have a key extractor a broken key extractor remember in many cases is really skinny and in a rough pinch this might work for you too I'm going to grab the mini knife just because it'll keep my hands a little further away from the lock and let's see if we can feel anything now when you don't know which side of the wheel to go on well go in blindly and just try now I'm just riding along here something a lot of people will do is sort of spike towards the axle like this and then rotate the wheels toward the tool so it's almost like if I was dragging along a seam right if I'm dragging this direction I might bounce over that seam and not even feel it but if I'm pushing forward I'm much more likely to get hung up so if I'm pushing into these wheels and rolling the wheels toward the tool there's a chance I will feel something it's almost like a Ouija board like you don't want to look at what you're doing lest you convince yourself of something that isn't there and I'm not feeling anything yet on this side ooh maybe oh I feel something might be grabbing there in fact let me back that off a little bit so I'm just touching right on the wheel ooh you can almost see the tool is is flexing in fact if I can barely touch it and I Drive this wheel forward the tool is really just rising up it something is happening to me when I'm trying to get past the five there might be a divot there let's try the other side of this wheel just to be sure am I feeling anything on the right side not much there no I think it's going to be that left side yes something something is grabbing me as I try to go from five down to four now does that mean that that's one of the digits in the combination not necessarily it just means that I'm a little bit hung up here something something's wrong there let's try on this side this is next wheel and since I found something on the left here I'm going to stay on the left side maybe something nope not really hanging up there oh that felt that might have been something let's keep going around no let's see thank you nine no it's not really hanging up for me whew something is really jamming on that seven though it's very tight on the third wheel but can I get my tool in I can and you know what just for fun let's switch it up let's see if I can use the easy decoder and again I'm just pressing down of that axle as I rotate these wheels around and it doesn't matter if I'm accidentally disturbing the wheel next to me because I'm just trying to park these wheels together with one another hmm really hitting something yeah that sevens really grabbing me there so something about these these feel lined up now let's try the last one mmm is that a little something hmm maybe try it around a little more here hmm oh yeah that's some something's really flexing me and grabbing when I tried to get past the one just to be a little more certain of myself let's try the peterson mini knife which has a longer handle a little more stable move yeah so it's really dropping in there on that one so something something tells me that these wheels whatever's going on in the axle it's lined up and these little divots are in the same spot now will this release no it will not release so let's dial up again well that release No let's try that again nope so we're just dialing all the wheels in concert with one another and then trying that release which dramatically dramatically reducing the key space if we did our decode correctly all we really have to do is essentially try ten combinations huh if this isn't ha way to go friend of mine who set this for me I should have known and in a key box well then there you go you've got the actual keys you were going for and you can then recode the locks reset it remove it well whatever you really need to do maybe it's going to just keep working for you the way it was maybe you use the keys on a penetration channel and then put them back exactly the way you found them and no one's the wiser

Channel: DeviantOllam

Views: 33,020

Rating: 4.928854 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: 8NqyjrMYZXo

Length: 10min 10sec (610 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 11 2019