My ex uses a Master combination lock on her garden shed. She sticks the end of the shackle through the staple to keep the door from blowing open. She doesn't even bother to lock it. So, I guess Master is good for something. I told her she should use a bolt or a carabiner so a neighbor kid doesn't lock it on her (she doesn't know the combination) as a prank. That would save me a trip out there to give the lock a stern look to get it open.
I love to see corporations intentionally shoot themselves in the foot by cheaping out with Inferior materials. It just shows how much the corporation is not concerned with building trust and pride in the public eye.
I dunno, if a lock already has a weak 4-pin core on it, I don't think a zinc actuator significantly reduces its security. A cheap pick gun could open this thing faster than a blowtorch can.
To be fair, this was surprising, Master has the reputation for being tough, because the thief thats going to break into your toolshed, isnt going to pick it, theyre going to break it. The overwhelming majority of padlocks are tougher, both physically and in pick resistance, than what theyre attached to. The mere sight of lock thats notoriously difficult to 'break' into, is usually enough to send a thief on to a higher percentage target.
Can confirm this works. Had our key holder for our container leave with the key, never to be seen again. A little map gas and a small prybar and it came clean off. Thanks LPL for saving our work day.
While I have the upmost confidence in you, I really thought the lock body would absorb the heat and keep that core piece from melting. Very cool. Thanks for sacrificing a lock for some fun.
Albert Lebel At least it was cheap. Master locks are usually pretty well build on the outside but the cores are the weakest link. Even on the highest tiered master lock
Tony Hong That’s what I don’t understand. They have a very good core in their LOTO locks and sad cores in their big strong locks. They should put the LOTO cores in the big strong lock body and they would have a great lock.
personal eye and physical presence is usually the real security.. ( that's the military in me talking ).. my dad used to say.. locks only keep honest people honest. .. these are great videos! i can believe i just found this channel!!! amazing!! talent !
I love your torch attacks, LPL. You should try some medieval attacks next, like drawing and quartering a lock with draft horses. Love the videos!! Thanks.
Maybe this is a fire safety feature? Part of a new series "Watch Lock" you have to watch whatever the lock is protecting? Hard to imagine it is another in a series of inferior locks from ML?
I wonder if some guy at Master lock is sitting at his desk watching you on RU-vid and just hating you and your channel lol. I love what you do. Thanks for the video.
Cool video. I was wondering if the Master Lock core is zinc also, as that copper color is just plating, or paint, with some white metal beneath. It looks like you got the lock hot enough to melt the actuator, how did that core hold up?
Love the zinc melt videos, great work as always, but in real world terms I don't think that this vulnerability makes the lock much less secure. The likelihood of a thief knowing this particular weakness in this particular model, then going the torch route rather than the twist/pick/bolt cutter route seems pretty remote
You could do this fast enough to be a practical brute force attack if you used a better heat source. I think a car battery across the lock body might work pretty well, and then it would be portable and common enough to be practical. Be careful if you try it, of course.
I like this idea. You might like this video. 5000 Amp Fuse + Tools Melt With High Current ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-DJOX0c60wQE.html
I think the method would be more interesting if it still took advantage of the zinc actuator. Obviously one could melt the actuator with a welder/generator rig sitting in the back of a truck. At that level of equipment, one could take a plasma cutter to any part of the lock. A car battery is rather cheaper and more portable, and would exploit an actual flaw, if it worked.
I like the angular tension wrench. I have chronic tendonitis and arthritis in my left thumb (thanks to playing football). The modified wrench might help. Thanks!
Do you use propane? If so you should try MAPP gas in the yellow cylinder it's flame is twice as hot and would most likely melt the copper core and the zinc a lot faster.
I haven't seen a single Master Lock video which demonstrates a lock without a glaring security vulnerability. I mean, they don't put their cores with the most pins on locks that are physically secure; they put those on fabric bags. They don't put their cores chock full of security pins in their locks that weigh 3lb, they put them in plastic bodies as lock-out tag-out locks.
+Anonymouspock - It is highly likely the reason the higher security cores are used in specific situations are that they are required by industry driven requirements (banking and electrical). Master would probably not do this on their own.
Bought one of these to practice on and was having some difficulty. Took it apart and boy was I surprised when I saw 4 SPOOL SECURITY PINS. They're learning. I mean, they still haven't figured out that all 4 of them being spools makes the key annoying to remove from the lock and makes the whole thing sloppy, but hey a win is a win. Now I just have to learn how to defeat 4 spool security pins. 😅
Holy crap.. I had to watch this like 3x to figure out how to put this 530 back together :).. (you didn't show how you reassembled it) .. total newb here.. but I learned something.
LPL, in the event that the zinc doesn't melt with the torch, are you able to enter the lock again using conventional picking means? What I'm getting at is the the pin springs don't like heat and imo, might not have the ability to retain the pins and spools.
I just bought a house and in the garage someone put an "American" padlock on the track of my garage door and I can't pick it for nothing. I can get in about any master lock, this ones giving me fits.
Depending on the model of American lock you have there it may be possible to bypass the cylinder and open the lock by turning the actuator. Typical weakness of the round body line and their clones. Look it up in the body of LPL and Bills video library.
Ah, good old Master Lock. Not content to just make locks that can easily be picked, racked, opened with a sneeze and cut they made a lock that can be opened with a torch in a few minutes.
I do enjoy these videos using heat. But can we go the other way, like the myth of using a can of air to cool the lock till you can hit it with a hammer and break it or the internals. As always love the videos. Keep up the good information.
Is it me or are Master the biggest trolls in the industry? Their best cores go on their physically weakest products, their strongest products have cores of potato and pot metal parts that melt like butter. It’s as if they want to go for as long as possible without making a lock that ticks all the boxes, like it’s some kind of dreadful joke.
I love these videos! I wonder who at Masterlock gets the job of watching this stuff and writing up a report. Maybe an intern... typing it into a defect database. Then again, maybe just a legal type looking for something to sue about, lol. Probably nobody at all.
Hi Mr LockPickingLawyer Question; I see you opening every lock available which has me a bit worried. Could you advise me in buying a (few) lock(s) that are nearly unbreakable? Preferrably suitable for locking motorbikes
Péter Kiss he digs a bit pit in his back yard every month and drags a rolled up rug full of locks into the pit, he should stop using a rug because he is going to get the police called on him... although he is a lawyer
You'd think that if the actuator was made of cheese like this, they'd at least not make the core removable so that everyone can potentially see its cheesiness :o) Also, if the actuator is hollow, would yanking up on the shackle very hard force the balls into it maybe ?
As covered in 7th grade science "The inner core of the candle flame is light blue, with a temperature of around 1800 K (1500 °C). That is the hottest part of the flame. The color inside the flame becomes yellow, orange, and finally red." The dominant color in a flame changes with temperature. A fire is white, the hottest color possible for organic material in general, or yellow. Above the yellow region, the color changes to orange, which is cooler, then red, which is cooler still. Above the red region, combustion no longer occurs, and the uncombusted carbon particles are visible as black smoke. The temperature range from Red to White: Red Just visible: 525 °C (980 °F) Dull: 700 °C (1,300 °F) Cherry, dull: 800 °C (1,500 °F) Cherry, full: 900 °C (1,700 °F) Cherry, clear: 1,000 °C (1,800 °F) Orange Deep: 1,100 °C (2,000 °F) Clear: 1,200 °C (2,200 °F) White Whitish: 1,300 °C (2,400 °F) Bright: 1,400 °C (2,600 °F) Dazzling: 1,500 °C (2,700 °F) The difference between red-hot and white-hot is about 1000 degrees. But what about blue-hot? Anytime you see blue in a fire it is hotter than white. The range is between 2,600 and 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit and its the most oxygen-rich type of flame.
It's sad that consumers believe that MasterLocks provide any cost-effective security. Most of them seem just to be junk. How can they get away with it?
Trade secret for most everything: The general buying public is stupid and will not, or refuses to, examine things beyond the shiny packaging and ad-speak.
AlisonWheeler Philips is the Dutch electrical company, the US toolmaker is Phillips. Also, cross heads are called Phillips (PH) heads; if there are 4 more little cuts, they are Pozidrive (PZ).
To answer my own question, " I have two specialties: (i) corporate governance (i.e., the law governing the internal operation of corporations, and the relationships among the board of directors, officers and stockholders), and (ii) insurance coverage (i.e., the law governing the relationship between an insurer and its insureds)."
a plumbing torch has more than enough heat to melt a steel lock. just as long as you have some spare refractory insulation lying around. an otherwise solid, firebrick with a hole in it will work too, but only if you have a few hours to kill.
Master is unsurprisingly following the sales success of the dollar store Chinese imports...How about a sturdy steel bodied 50mm. padlock with hardened shackle and a 7 disc detainer core, all for a miserly $cdn3.50, that's about $2.50 in real money....Trouble is you can pop the core out with a metal punch and if that is too much work you can use the ever handy plumbers torch because the core and actuator are ... wait for it ... plastic ! ..
![[677] Plumber’s Torch Opens Master Lock M530](/img/logo.svg){kind=logo}
