I'm a bit behind on the 'welcome wagon' here (I get quite busy this time of year)... but WELCOME!
You mentioned in another thread that you should maybe post an introduction - personally, I'd love
to see that. I always like to hear some background on people, and I always love to hear what/why
someone gets interested in safecracking.
Anyway, I'm very excited for you! And impressed. Specifically in regards to how quickly you've
caught on to wheel movement (one of the biggest struggles when starting). In your S&G thread
you mention you may have messed up once in terms of what wheel(s) you
thought you were
moving... but for the most part I'd say you're navigating the wheel pack pretty damn well!
Congrats on your first victory... and with a LaGard nonetheless! Until you fully understand them,
they are very elusive locks. I myself struggled with 'em for 4 looong years. Recently met a locksmith
that was immediately interested in what (if anything) I knew of LaGards -
he's struggled with them for
nearly
40 years. So it's common to see them drilled, even though they can indeed be manipulated.
tarboxb wrote:.....After doing a lot of research on this site, particularly Oldfast's shadowing trick of indicating ten numbers at a time to graph the general shape of the wheels, today, after about 4 hours and 6 graphs, I managed to open the safe!.....
This is one of many,
many techniques I've tried over the years. Although it
is a means to an end (and I'm glad
to hear it helped you!), it is just one more attempt that eventually fell by the waste side. I eventually found it to
be inconsistent in the long run. Over the last year or so I've been working
intensely with these and have finally
gotten to a point where I feel pretty good about it. Bout freakin' time! Geez, lol. How I've now come to handle
them is actually a mixture of two different methods (
neither original to me).
Now nothing is more annoying than to have someone jump in on a thread just to say "
Oh yeah, it can be done",
or, "
I have an awesome method for that" - but then disappear or refuse to elaborate! Certainly, I'm not 'that guy'.
I, more so than most, can understand how frustrating it can be to have so much devotion, so much work ethic
for manipulation - yet not always know where/how to direct your efforts. I
do hope to expand upon this topic at
some point, but honestly I'm struggling a little bit as to if/how to do that correctly. Up to this point, all my writing
around here is based solely on my own work... so to talk, even in a general way, about someone
else's work is
new to me. So for now, I'll just take my time and tread lightly. I must talk with these people first. We'll see.
tarboxb wrote:Yeah, the 3330 from my understanding is tricky for a Group 2 ...../snip/..... You will see dramatic variation due to the out of roundness of the wheels.
This is incorrect. And is a very common belief that
I myself hung onto for a long time! LaGard wheels are in fact
fairly concentric. Actually, they're about as 'round' as any other wheel type in any other lock. Extreme fluctuations
exhibited by LaGards (and Ilco's P67 lock) are a direct result of what's known as 'wheel float'. Wheel float exists, to
some extent, in nearly every lock. But LaGard has it to such a degree that it tends to throw most of us for a real loop.
Without writing an entire article, lol... basically 3 things factor into creating wheel float:
1. the space/tolerance that exists between the wheels and wheel post. (
If the center hole of
each wheel were a perfect fit to the wheel post, there wouldn't be enough 'play' for rotation.)
2. device used within a lock to provide tension on the wheel pack. (
This 'sandwiches' the
wheels together for a properly functioning lock. In the case of LaGard's - a wave washer.)
3. And finally, rotational force/torque on the wheels (
that occur when we're turning them.)
A wheel when being turned will be lifted up off the wheel post, or, pressed down. Naturally,
this brings the wheel closer to, or further from, the fence; giving us a wide range of readings.
Whether a wheel is lifted up or pressed down will be dependent on both the direction in which
we're rotating as well as where we're at within one revolution.
Logic says gravity will always bring a wheel to rest/hang on the wheel post at its' lowest point.
That's where the wave washer comes into play. The tension will 'hold' a wheel in a suspended
state, leaving it 'hovering' up off the wheel post.
So there you have it - what took my dumbass nearly 4 yrs to understand....
you get
TONIGHT. The 'information age', ain't it grand?!
Hope it helps.
All that said; Personally, I have found understanding wheel float versus
actually using it to my
advantage are two very different things, lol. It has taken me a long time (and I'm still learning).
What can I say, lol... I'm a slow learner. And honestly, I'm not much for 'thinking outside the box'.
But
HERE in this manipulation you can see that I began to realize/understand the importance of
directional rotation - the lifting and pressing down of the wheels. For the first time, (not knowing
there was even a name for it) I at least
started to utilize wheel float by using it to minimize the
inconsistent hi/low test results I'd been battling with. Reading over that manipulation btw, may
help answer some questions you had in your S&G thread. Anyway, hope this helps somehow.
I'll head over to your other thread (S&G Nightmare) and see what damage I can do there. lol
Again, very nice to meet ya. Lookin' forward to seen' ya around & hope to learn from/with you!