Hi friends. I’d like to use this month’s article to address some of the real issues facing locksmiths today. The cold hard

truth is that locksmithing is not always one of the most sexy occupations. We don’t get movies made about us where we are rushing into burning buildings to rescue little old ladies, or using our palaeontologist skills to lead a rag-tag bunch of survivors across an island infested with reincarnated dinosaurs; but there ARE a few skills the locksmith possesses which can win him the respect and admiration of friends and family.

The ability to magically produce a key from a lock without disassembly is a trick which will instantly make your children love you more, and your customers want to shower you with money.

Decoding from a worn or broken key, Impressioning, Picking, and Reading, are all techniques made much easier with knowledge of Lock Rules. These are the rules a manufacturer uses when creating a code series. In this article, we are going to look at how we use InstaCode to deduce these lock rules and use them for our own gains. It’s not cheating, it’s playing smarter!

Lock Rules can be broken down into two subsets.

Physical rules are due to physical restrictions of the lock or the key. For example, you will often find that the deepest depth in a code series cannot be adjacent to the shallowest depth. In the process of cutting the deep cut, the machine will also cut away some of the shallow cut creating a key which will not work properly.

Pattern rules can be there for a number of reasons. It doesn’t really matter why they are there, but finding a pattern in a code series can help you quickly decode an unknown depth.

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Finding Lock Rules

by Jeremy Phillips

For this example we will look at the Yamaha Motor-cycle series: B32010 – B39897. This code series uses 4

depths, and has five cuts.

When we use the Print Code series feature to view the whole code series, several patterns immediately

become obvious...

Print Code Series: This feature is usually used for printing a hard copy of every code and decode within a series for use in a van. However, it can also be a quick way of identifying patterns within a series.

Access it from the Tasks menu once your code series is opened. (Note: this feature is not available for every code series.)

Find Bitting: This feature is normally used when we are searching for one particular bitting, but with a little imagination we can harness its power and use it to find rules and

patterns to turn us into super locksmiths.

Other common patterns to search for include; cuts alternating ODD-EVEN or EVEN-ODD, pairs of positions adding up to a specific

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As you can see from the table, the code number and the decode share several important points.

It quickly becomes obvious that this code series is simply a cipher, with each digit of the code number

representing a specific depth in the decode.

Code Number

Has 5 digits

Rotates 4 digits in each position

All codes start with a “3”

Decode

Has 5 cuts

Rotates 4 depths in each

position

All codes finish with a “2”

By mapping this out, we create this table which allows us to decode any code number in this series. Note that

the code number is written tip to head.

For example, a code of 38097 will translate to cuts of 14232.

This little party trick came in handy for me one day when one of my customers phoned me with a code number he was reading from the ignition. The code

number he quoted me was 32828. Without hesitation, not only was I able to tell him he had read the number wrong, but I was able to tell him exactly which digit it

was and suggest that perhaps what he had read as an eight was possibly a mis-stamped three!

Positions

Depth

s

1

2

3

4

5

—

3

—

—

4

9

2

8

4

3

8

0

5

6

2

1

4

2

9

1

7

1

0

3

For this example we will look at the Nissan 10 cut code series: 1-22185

Open the series and open the Find Bitting window.

Start by progressively testing to see if there are any codes which have the deepest depth next to the shal-

lowest. This is the most common lock rule.

In this case we find that there is a rule prohibiting a 4 depth being next to a 1 depth.

The next step is to test each depth in each position. Often you will find that certain depths are not used in

key positions.

In this case we find that there are no bittings which use a 1 depth in the tip position.

This is because the last cut is actually part way down the tip slope.

total and the sum of all cuts being divisable by a certain value.

Track type keys, especially internal track keys, often have physical restrictions on what depths a cut can pass through. This means you will sometimes find that you will never be allowed a depth 1 opposite another depth 1. If a depth 1 cut on a key can’t physically pass through a depth 5 wafer, you will find patterns in the code series to reflect that.

These are only some of the most common rules and patterns, there are many more out there waiting to be found, so get looking!

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We also find that there are no bittings which use a 4 depth in either of the first two positions.

A little more experimentation reveals that there are only 4 possible cut combinations for the first two posi-

tions: 1-2, 2-1, 2-3 and 3-2.

This is good for us because the door and trunk locks only contain the last 8 cuts in these vehicles. Knowing this rule would help us when working out the first two

positions from the Ignition.

More experimentation reveals that in this code series you can never have more than 3 consecutive positions

with the same depth and never more than 5 of the same depth over all.

Once you have found a rule, make a note of it in Insta-Code. These notes will display each time you open this

series to remind you.

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