Unpickable Lock? The Co-Axial Lock by Andy Pugh 

Hey, it's an good design and unpickable in my option, I should now as I invented this style of disk lock about 5 years ago, but abandoned the idea as it's unpatentable, because someone else beat me to it - Carl L. Lambert, invented it 20 years ago, see US patent 5,964,111.

I would like to see this lot sent to the lock picking lawyer and see if he could pick it that way it can be improved on if necessary. I also would like to say thank you lock noob for having your stuff online I had a friend of mine 3D print a couple of lock cylinder holders and a pinning tray for me which of course the pinning tray has your logo on it.

Till Lockpicking Lawyer gives it a go, I don't trust it to be "unpickable".

As a designer (code, not mechanics), I can really appreciate the sheer beauty of the design. Not the physical beauty of the embodiment, though that is also wonderful, but the beauty of the ideas behind it. Thanks to you, and thanks to Andy for sharing.

I want to see Lockpicking Lawyer try this one!

This lock might be vulnerable to a hybrid attack. Push the key spacers above the main sheer line, then bump to make a space in the stack so the thin wafers don't jam on the inner sleeve.

Another thing is that this actually makes lock manufacturing easier - a factory don't need to stock different pins no longer, they only need to stock 5 types of parts for pin holes Key pin, Key wafer, Thick Wafer, Driver pin, Spring. Regardless of key, keycode is just amount of key wafers.

Wow. Just wow. Didn't realize there was two different sleeves at first and couldn't understand the deep false set. That's brilliant, yet supremely silly to see it in a padlock. That mechanism has some true high security applications. Would also like to point out the beautiful machining that went into making that prototype. Thank you so much for sharing and going into such detail. 👏 👏 👏

I’ve known Andy for over 20 years and he never ceases to amaze me - without doubt the cleverest bloke I have ever met. I never even knew he was into locks, so to pop up with this (and the beautiful machining) is just bonkers.

Absolutely beautifully designed. Love it. Also love your videos. I'm very new to picking, about 10 months now but I love your passion and love seeing how and why these locks work. Thank you for sharing and being who you are!

Another beautiful and clever design for an unpickable lock 🔐 Do you think you could pick it? Can you see a way? Let us know!

Not saying that it will work, but the first thing I think about whenever I see a design like this is to see if an overlift attack combined with a tension wrench bounce will get the lock open. Also after further watching and thinking about the design, it appears that the drivers are all the same height so it may be possible to decode the bitting somewhat by measuring max lift height of each pin stack. This could work only because in this particular design, the drivers and the first wafer are essentially known hieghts the only variability left is the key pins and the short stack of smaller wafers. If you max lift each pin stack and subtract the known lengths of the drivers and main wafer, you get the remainder of the pin stack height. It's all theoretical but that's at least how I'd try to attack it.

Hi Lock Noob, Clever design, and obviously its number one criteria was its pick resistance. That's fine for Locksporters as it becomes a major challenge to one and all, from a practical situation, and as a Locksmith, I have some concerns. For a lock design to become a commercial success - and I've seen so many "clever" locks fail - it has to be long term reliable in the field. It also has to be able to be master keyed, for large installations. Master keying requires additional master wafers to be added en masse to an already large stack of "master wafers" in this cylinder. Stacked master wafers - particularly 15 thou. thick - often jam or roll over causing lock outs as the pins, keyways, and cylinders wear. The addition of extra sleeves, and wafers, long term, is adding to complexity. The old saying " Complexity is the enemy of reliability" has in my 60 odd years of Locksmithing, been true so many times.

Beautifully machined; a real work of art. I've been enjoying lock-sport for over 10 years and would dearly love to watch what Lockpicking Lawyer makes of this. Many thanks!

Very neat concept. I've enjoyed watching all these new delayed authentication designs that have been coming out recently. Because of how the drivers are laid out, couldn't you use the required lift to the first shearline to drastically cut down the number of key combinations? From what I can tell, at baseline position, the lower shearline either intersects the long top driver (high cut) or the gap-sized wafer (low cut). If you measure the amount of lift required for every stack to reach the first shear, then you know that the required key cut at every position will be that height plus one of only 2 values. You could then extract further information by attempting to determine whether the second wafer that hits shear in each stack is a thin or a thick wafer, which would be quite difficult but very possible with some trial and error. If you can distinguish that binary decision for each stack, then you'll have successfully decoded the lock. I think the biggest flaw in this design is that the layout of the drivers that determines the correct key cuts is accessible via picking and measuring. This is in contrast to some other designs where the authentication mechanism cannot be probed in this way through picking.

The best way to attack it is if the bar shown at 12:45 and onwards can be reached though the keyhole. If you can tension that it might be possible to pick it.

Very clever design indeed! There are a couple of practical problems that I can see: (1) The thickness of the thin wafers limits the maximum possible key differs. As the lock tolerance limits how thin you can make the wafer without the risk of wafer falling between tolerances within the sleeves even with wear, those wafers are already about as thin as possible. As a result, it seems that each key cut has maybe 3-4 different depths only. As a result, the whole system with 5 pins can have only 4^5 or 1024 different keys. It should be obvious to anybody why this is not a safe enough key system. (2) The middle sleeve that must be in same orientation with the lock body. As a result, it can be directly attacked from the outside with the prototype implementation. If you attack the faceplate with a destructive attack and can twist the middle sleeve, you can pick the lock pretty normally after that. You could just move all the pins one stack worth backwards in the lock and add one extra pin to hold middle sleeve in position with a hole in it but that would make keys one stack worth of longer (basically sacrifice one pin worth of length from the middle sleeve and let it ride against this locking pin for the whole time). Maybe that's acceptable? That would also allow using just a tube form middle sleave with extra holes so it would be much more easy to manufacture. One clear improvement would be to attach the cam to the outermost sleeve and use some soft material such as pure copper for the pin that connects the core (with the keyhole) to the outermost sleeve and if attacker applies too much force, the copper pin would deform and the lock would fail in locked state. This would also allow even more rotation for the core before checking the actual pins which would make any practical pin manimulation even harder. To fix issue (1) above, you could simply add way more pins similar to my design "mtr-18pt.blend" (search for "mikkorantalainen community-core" with Google and open the file with Blender 3.2 or newer) but that would result in pretty weird looking keys. Compared to my design, if you go with longer keys as I described in (2) above, I guess this design would be more practical to implement with real world machinery. The only question is if the material thickness is enough for lock that's mechanically strong enough. If the above issues can be fixed, then the only way I can see this lock could be opened without the correct key is _decoding_ it similar to mechanical safe locks where you create different make-up keys and accurately measure how much the lock can be turned. Change only one key cut at a time. Each time you can rotate the lock even a bit further, assume that the last changed key cut was the correct one and change some another cut a bit deeper. That will get the lock open but it will be slow and tedious process. However, with only 5 pins and 4 cut depths, that wouldn't be that bad so the keyspace must be extended a lot even to prevent decoding attacks. I think each pin stack should have standard driver pin and key pin + identical number of thin wafers + one correct thick wafer. That way you cannot decode the lock from the stack height but that requires the thick wafer to be non-integer thickness compared to thin wafers so that you cannot substitute the thick wafer with some thin wafers.

It's a cool design idea but there is a few things that need fixing for this to be viable. Firstly, unless there is some overlift protection, those 'false' shear lines could still function assuming you can push wafers up to the second true shear line (which the animation actually shows is possible) making comb picking a real possibility. Secondly, the plug needs to be sealed off at the back to prevent manipulation of the connecting rod otherwise there is potential for a tool to reach in and tension the true shear line (once set the inner plug shear line is useless). Finally, from a repinning standpoint, it would be a pain in the ass to have both driver pin size AND wafer stack count determine the bitting. At least in the enclave the driver pin was the only meaningful part to the bitting with wafer counts being up to preference. EDIT: Thought of another potential issue. The previous enclave has the possibility for mastering in the driver pins for commercial access control keys. The co-axial does not and therefore not suitable for that market purpose. It would prove prohibitively difficult to not only support a master bitting between the two shear lines but even more of a pain in the ass for a locksmith to repin.

That is a wonderful lock, and beautiful engineering!

I'd like to see what the lockpicking lawyer can do with it.

Thank you for sharing, a very well designed and well thought out, doesn't seem impossible but very difficult to pick, I did enjoying seeing it and being taken apart, thank you

I had this exact idea about a year ago. Never got around to making it. Glad to see that it works

This is brilliant!

Thanks for sharing all of the aspects of that beautifully designed lock. It looks so unassuming that you wouldn't suspect that it is unpickable without some sort of special equipment if that's even possible. Beyond my comprehension...

Amazing engineering

Wow! Great idea and execution. Andy did great work there.

Very smart design indeed. Thanks for sharing.

Excellent video, very well explained every part of the lock

Great design on this lock! Really impressive with what Andy has come up with. Also a great execution on the prototype! Excellent presentation of this very complex lock. Well done and thank you very much for sharing! Cheers 🍻

Really great video and a really impressive concept. I admire people who implement great ideas so brilliantly. Andy Pugh has really created something impressive here and I hope that his patent also goes into series production. This simply has to be rewarded.

Thank you for explaining that. I've long wondered why master wafers make a lock easier to pick, while doing what you described makes it impossible. You are a wonderful teacher. You've answered so many of my questions without my even having to ask them. I've still got a couple of questions about keyways, but I'll bet there's something in your back catalogue (I'm watching in reverse order).❤

A beautiful piece of engineering.

Extremely clever design.

Such a simple idea, it would seem that aside from picking, the next intrusion method would be to clone or obtain the matching key. Unless there is a skeleton key of course. It would be great to get (before he sadly retired), Bosnian Bill's take on this , and of course LockPickingLawyer's view also. It appears to be a potential game changer, and I really hope Andy Pugh gets his patent and these lock cores see the mainstream market, certainly here in the UK 👍🤞

great concept.

Excellent description of a brilliant design. Is this the end of lock picking? Not while Masterlock still exists 😊

Very Cool design.

That was an excellent video. I enjoyed it.

A definite downside is as the lock is used the key, and the key pins wear.. The lock will become unusable over time, and that will cause some very big problems for people. Also that lock must be kept incredibly clean as I can see even the smallest amount of dirt/weathering could possibly render it unusable. I do like the concept, and design tho, but have reservations about durability.

see the gutting went much smoother than the other lock (DOM) super cool lock thank you for the cool content

I think there are three potential weaknesses. Firstly the 2nd shear line for each pin is the correct position so it might be possible to feel this. Secondly you might be able to overdrive the pins so that wafers fill the sleeve gap. Lastly a bypass tool might be possible to tension the sleeve.

Send it to the Lock Picking Lawyer. He's picked our best.

Beautiful piece of engineering! I believe the design is similar to what Priyer was working on quite a while ago. Fantastic vid Ash and thanks for sharing mate. Take care and enjoy the rest of your weekend.

cool lock. Thank you.

Brilliant design and execution!!!😃 Great video and explanation!!!😃 Thanks for sharing this!!!! 🐈🐾🐈‍⬛🐾🇬🇧🍻

Nice one, Andy!

Wow Well done

very cool lock .... great video very informative

Thank you, this is helpful for someone very green!

"Oh sir, it's only wafer thin."

Without giving too much away. There is a non destructive attack method for THIS lock. That can easily be resolved with how the the waifers are stacked. Trying not to give away too much on the "flaw" because it could be just a simplification for the prototype. I absolutely love the design. Well done Andy.

Unbelievably complex. Thanks for showcasing another 'unpickable' lock. I certainly couldn't pick it. I would certainly buy it if I needed a lock that was truly high-security.

Very nice vid i really enjoyed every second of it

This is an awesome design. Hell I just want a padlock that takes half euros. Let alone something built so beautifully. Still baffles me that it has so many wafers but only opens at one shearline. I would think that them wafers would have to lock up somehow. Or have a pin thru them to keep them from turning on a shear. Like something master key’d. Gonna have to rewatch this. Think I missed something🤷🏼😂. Very cool content! And Andy…. Holy hell man👏👏👏😎. I’m looking to see if ya have your own channel. Very cool lock!

That was beautifully presented and explained, really enjoyed that. Looks like an angle grinder lockpicking session to me 🤔😉😂 What a fabulous bit of engineering. All the best to you and yours 👍 👍 👍 🍻

This is actually brilliantly designed. Is it unpickable? As someone has already said, I'd like to see LPL give it a try. No question it would be a challenge.

I know sh*t about lock picking, I'm total rookie. But this lock excites me. It's so simple and so powerful solution. I thing maybe wear and tear may be an issue. But - wow. I hope one day LPL will give it a try.

Wow Andy -- a masterpiece of engineering -- very well conceived and executed. Normally Master Keying by stacking master wafers is a total no no and makes picking child's play BUT you have successfully reversed the concept to make a very highly "pick resistant" lock, and in a usable EURO format to boot! Thanks to loaning it to Ash so we could actually see the guts -- most excellent

I'd love to see how LPL or Bill would tackle this.

Send it to the Lockpicking lawyer and see if he can pick it :) Do a collaberation

After re-examining this, I'm thinking the wafers make it easier to pick, if the thickness of the wafer stack exceeds the thick pin above them. Perhaps it would be advantageous if the stack of wafers which happened to exceed the thickness of the pin above them were also two thick or too thin. Example: 2 combined wafers were too short to equal the above pin while 3 combined wafers were too long to equal the above pin. I hope this makes sense. Happy new year and keep up the good work!

If anyone wants to see how the lock was made: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-23fcHVlDfFQ.html

2 options. You must only turn the outer core in some way. Maybe you can reach it with a long hook? Another way is to go from deepest level to lower level. Due to the bigger size the inner core will not move when you have found the real pin. And then you know how many stacking disks you have. With the knowledge you can make a key-copy. Or try to hold the pins at the right height and see which stack binds first.

Impressive

From a number of combinations perspective, only the "correct" ones matter, so you have 5 pins with 7 values each (from a password perspective, a very small space). So if you can sequentially go through them mechanically (not via picking and feeling) one at a time (00000, 00001, 00002, ...), it may take a few minutes, but it would be possible. A 3D version of this would be amazing and significantly more difficult (i.e. 2, 3, 4, ... sets of pin stacks), but then the metal of the lock becomes easier to bypass. As with all things like a password, length (# pins here) is the only actual protection against a determined attacker with lots of time. And also with all things security, "fixing" one weakness just moves it somewhere else, and if you're smart enough you know where you moved the weakness :). Great video and awesome design!

I'm concerned about the longevity of a lock like this. The more pieces it has, the more possible failing points it could have.

Genius but simple design. I may be misunderstanding the set up of the pin stacks, but from the animation it seems that the large wafer 'correct' is always on the top. If so this would mean a skilled picker who is able to set a pin on the first lift virtually every time, would be able to locate the large wafer in the Goldilocks zone pin by pin. In practice I imagine this would be very difficult but potentially possible? In order to protect against this there would need to (at least sometimes) be small wafers above the large one so the picker doesn't know the first shear line is the correct one. The height of the large wafers would also need to not be a multiple of the heights of the small wafers lest 2 or 3 wafers could perfectly fit between the 2 shear lines.

I love your content.

It's not unpickable til LPL has a try 😆

City rake and tryout keys. Possible tensioning by going through the bottom of inner core or by jamming or wedging the two cores together

This is an exceptionally clever lock. Brilliant that it fits in a standard lock body. Looks like there is a tiny gap to get a tensioning tool to the coaxial core. Might be enough to let you pick it? Also might be able to tension the coaxial core through the attached shackle or bolt? That said, the biggest potential vulnerability I see is over lifting. Looks like if you can get the wafer stack into the coaxial core the lock will open. Might be able to stop this by making the coaxial core 2.5 wafers thick? Maybe add some traps for wafers in the wrong spot?

That was REALLY cool, but with those wafers being so thin, makes me wonder about longevity, and durability.

The Lock Picking Lawyer's worst nightmare!

I had a very similar idea a year ago, based on the Corbin master-ring lock. The Corbin master-ring lock by itself already has a multitude of pin height combinations that match shear lines on all pins amongst which only two will actually open the lock - one for each of the two shear lines. I added multiple wafers on the false shear line, and a similar limited-play connection between plug and intermediate cylinder as what's between the plug and sleeve here. What stopped me from proceeding beyond that was that I didn't have what I felt was a satisfactory means to reset everything when re-locking the cylinder. The detent pin at the back of this lock was something I'd considered, but even with that, this lock may have the same shortcoming that I stopped at. You didn't show using the actual key to both unlock and re-lock this lock. The turning the key in either direction, the sleeve lags the plug. This is fine when unlocking, as the false shear line is exercised first before tensioning the main shear line(s), at which point the upper pins are no longer manipulable. However, to re-lock things, the key would need to turn past the locked position in order to return the sleeve to its home position, and no further before coming back to the home position. A detent would give tactile feedback for when the sleeve has made it home, but if the detent doesn't have a capture range wider than the play of the plug/sleeve coupling, then a little overshoot/return wiggle may be required when re-locking. I suppose it's likely this lock has a wide enough detent range to deal with that, but it feels like a more fragile solution that I was happy with in my own efforts. I think it also bears mention, that my dabbling in this space was very much inspired by the Shane Wighton's (of the Stuff Made Here youtube channel) unpickable lock videos which presented the idea of separating the setting of pin heights from tensioning of the working shear line. I think it's highly likely that both this lock and the Enclave share this source of inspiration, and if that's the case, I would find it very disappointing if they don't give Shane the credit he deserves; I haven't seen him acknowledged, but hope they did and simply missed it.

This seems like it might be SP pickable from the top down; i.e., overlift the pins and let them drop into place? Delicate pick, but with the right touch.... Could be solved by shorter driver pins and thin wafers on either side of the thicker one? 🤔 Still seems like the right feel (not mine, lol!🤪) might counter the wafer setup. 🤷‍♂

From the thumbnail and title, I had guessed the lock would have different correct shear lines for different pin stacks. The core would be the shape of a stepped cone and different pin stacks shear at different radii. This design would be robust against an (unmodified) comb picking attack as the top of the comb brings the bottom of each stack to the same shear line, the comb itself would cross the shear line at pin 5 and prevent core rotation .

Give it to the lockpicking lawyer

The Lock picking Lawyer has left the chat.

Let's see if LPL can pick it.

Hey Mr Noob! Fantastic video as always my friend. I think I have an idea on how to pick this and a potential fix for that. Im going to have to put on my thinking cap

As thin as the parts are, I wonder how many times of opening before the mechanisms "wear out of alignment".

Interesting. Though overlifting or comb pick attacks might be viable here.

Send it to Lock Picking Lawyer

Could you use different height blank keys, like a straight rectangle, to push every pin up to a specific position at the same time while tensioning and vibrate the lock until they fall into place? Trial and error with different height blanks until it works. In my mind you'd avoid the multiple false sets by starting backwards instead of trying to pick upwards.

Priyer has commented on Andy Pughs video "The Making of My Custom Lock", and said he has a patent pending on this lock design. He said he's expecting it to be finalised in the next few weeks. Many of us older members on UKLS will recall Priyer discussing his design with members and a link to a video demonstrating it's operation which is why Andy Pughs animation video jogged my aging memory somewhat 🙂. Brian Hignetts comment on this video is worth a read. He gives a Locksmiths perspective on the practicalities of implementing this type of design in the field.

What does the lock picking lawyer says

Amazing engineering! Perhaps oversetting each pin and trying to pick in reverse and work out where that thick wafer is?

I’ll believe it’s unpickable if it stops Lockpicking Lawyer.

even cutting a spare key from the original would be difficult as the precision required beyond a normal cutting machine

Hey Lock Noob, what happens if the key gets slightly worn? Would it go from unpickable to unusable?

I wouldn’t expect a rake to have much of a chance, but I am curious to see how it holds up against "try out" keys.

This is a great design. Perhaps on a false shearline, brute force will turn the cylinder.

What about comb picking is it possible to lift the thick wafer past the top shearline and will a double stack of thin wafers fit between the center shearline

wow!

Wow! Incredible lock but how long will those wafers hold up with everyday use? I always thought the more shear lines the easier to pick but incredible design.

Wanna see lockpicking lawyer attempt this!! ^^

simple enough i think it could work really well. seems like it would be a higher price point lock, so the durability of the wafers could easily be solved by using more durable metal for them.

so cool! what about a comb attack?

can lpl pick it?

Would like to know if they are going to use hardened pins and pins to make it hard to drill