November meeting re-cap and minutes

The November meeting was modestly attended - in particular we missed our regular Sargent at Arms as well as our Hospitality Chair - our waitress, Deb, specifically inquired after the "cookie lady" so just so you know, Rosemarie, you are a little bit famous now.

The meeting was brief but effective and, in keeping with the previously noted trend, uncontentious. 

Matters of note:

Dana only has 2 people signed up for the Education weekend. There's going to be an introductory masterkey class and an in-depth safe certification prep class - but only if we get participants. The registration forms are on the website (click the tab above for the Learning Curve).

Mike Sullivan may organize another prison tour at Oak Park Heights. There's no date yet as interest is still being guaged so if you think you would like to attend let us know (for now you can drop a line to mnaloa(at)gmail).  This is a rare opportunity to see detention hardware in the field and learn about the job of a locksmith at a supermax prison facility.  In the past the tour has been conducted on a Saturday and pre-registration is required (you must supply your name, birthdate and drivers license number).

The education presentation was very good, as usual, with Mark Lundblad delivering quite a lot of information very efficiently - summarized below the break.



Lever locks - by which we are talking the internal locking mechanism, not the shape of the exterior handle - are fantastic.  Locks secured by stacks of levers (as opposed to a row of pins) are not well-known in the United States - although historically they were quite dominant in western countries in general and they are still quite common overseas today.

Tools to bypass lever locks were the main thrust of the discussion and although most of the locks in the demonstration were antiques, the tools were quite modern.  Many different stacks of levers in locks means many configurations of picks - a few of the ones Mark discussed or had on hand to demonstrate are:

The 2-in-1 pick - calibrated by guage with different guages required for different locks.  The 2-in1 picks will run up to several hundred dollars each.

Warded lock picks come in sets very much like tryout keys. A high quality set - made of stainless steel - may again run into the hundreds of dollars and be comprised of dozens of different profiles of pick.

We also got to see cross picks which look for all the world like those Star Wars drone robots that patrolled the frozen surface of Hoth.  Very cool.  I was distracted by hovering them around my water glass and totally missed their intended function, but I'm sure you could find it somewhere on the internet.

And with that, we concluded.  A bit more chatting, marveling at how so little snow could still be sticking (I was promised 40 degrees!) and the last of us vacated the premises just after 9.

Here's a link to the minutes.