Wooden combination lock

https://woodgears.ca/combolock/index.html

by chaosmachine • 11 years ago

439 58 11 years ago

ak39• 11 years ago

Awesome. How long does it take to achieve skills of this calibre in woodwork?

vailripper• 11 years ago

Matthias is fantastic at engineering things and then building them out of wood, but I consider it very different than true woodworking. To me, the level of craft of someone like Sam Maloof is on an entirely different level.

function_seven• 11 years ago

Although Matthias does have metal tools, they're just items he hasn't gotten round to wood-ifying yet.

The man is truly unique among wood-workers. If he were given the task of building a suspension bridge, he'd make the damn cables out of wood if he could. (And he'd probably succeed at it, too).

monk_e_boy• 11 years ago

Wood is pretty easy to work with, if you have some nice tools (these are also pretty cheap to buy second hand.)

Once you know what wood you like working with (I prefer something like oak, pine is too soft. Cheery is lush. Apple is also nice...) you just need something sharp to cut it with, a saw, a knife, some drills. Add some sand paper and off you go.

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

I don't really know. I have always tinkered with wood. Could be comparable to becoming good at computer programming.

cliffwarden• 11 years ago

He's truly a hacker... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBmnQN78aZU

starshadowx2• 11 years ago

Can we please have scaffold jousting and racing now?

erikpukinskis• 11 years ago

I think you are looking for this: http://burningman.org

biturd• 11 years ago

Even more "HN applicable", a wooden calculator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcDshWmhF4A

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

Hi, it's Matthias here (I built the lock). Got any questions for me?

aidos2• 11 years ago

Just checked out both the lock and your scaffold video. Amazing projects.

I don't have any real wood working skills (though I hacked together some window boxes out of a wooden pallet last month). Every time I see a project like this posted I get really inspired and wish I spent more of my life learning this craft.

How would you recommend a complete amateur get started?

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

I get asked that not infrequently. So I wrote about it a while back :)

http://woodgears.ca/beginner

rawnlq• 11 years ago

Hey you have a typo on your webpage: http://woodgears.ca/

"Send me email: (Frequencly asked questions)"

By the way is this your full time job? I imagine making one high quality article a week is pretty intense. The stuff you do is very cool!

(just curious since you seem to have a software background and I am interested to know how you managed to transition to doing a hobby full time =P)

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

It wasn't really by plan. I quit my job at Blackberry (then called "Research in Motion" and decided not to work for a while. The website was good to spend time on, and it just grew from there.

Looks like I answered too many comments, cause hacker news is telling me to slow down. Oh well. No more answers!

jacquesm2• 11 years ago

Did you do any writing on woodworking safety?

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

Safety, like security, or religion, unfortunately, is exempt from rational analysis. Which is to say, nothing good will become from writing about safety. I don't want to get into a religious discussion.

11thEarlOfMar• 11 years ago

Very fun. Is there any reason the basic design can't extend to more than 3 numbers?

acjohnson55• 11 years ago

It seems like you could, but it would make the opening process more complicated, because you'd have to rotate a revolution for each additional rotor for all the rotors to catch.

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

You could go to more numbers. Though it gets awkward to dial, and cumulative precision become an issue.

JshWright2• 11 years ago

No questions, just a thanks for making your videos. You're on my short list of regular 'YouTubers', despite the fact that I have zero woodworking experience, and don't have any plans to change that...

I really enjoy watching your approach to design and problem solving (and obviously your precision and craftsmanship).

webwright• 11 years ago

Have you ever considered using a laser cutter, CNC, or the like?

JshWright2• 11 years ago

The pantorouter[1] is sort of an 'analog CNC'.

[1] http://woodgears.ca/pantorouter/

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

Yes, certainly thought about it. But for most of what I do, a consumer grade CNC wouldn't be able to do it. And for most of the cuts that a CNC could do, I can cut it much faster by hand. Yes, in theory, I don't have to be there while the CNC runs, but in practice, if I can cut it 10x faster by hand, that doesn't matter.

kriro• 11 years ago

Fantastic video. It helped me understand how a combination lock works. I also have to wonder if there's any entropy analysis on the click to close to reset the lock. Seems like you can get at least some information on more likely combinations from the final position and some assumptions about how far the pegs rotate back.

Have you considered making a big-ish "regular" lock with a big wooden key (even though you'd need springs, not sure if you want 100% wood)? I think it would be a pretty valuable tool for learning how to properly lockpick (with wooden tools) :)

disillusioned• 11 years ago

This was fantastic. I never knew how combination locks worked before, and there couldn't be a better explanation than your model and video. Really well done!

neillyons• 11 years ago

Hi Matthias, could you describe how your website is built? It looks like static HTML files built from a WYSIWYG editor.

Also could you describe how your website analytics work? I see you're using a 1px gif to log requests. I guess this just logs to a file. How do you find out when you get a surge of traffic like from Hacker News?

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

I write HTML using a text editor. The 1x1 gifs help count pages, because bots tend not to fetch them. Though I don't monitor traffic that closely.

rndn• 11 years ago

Did you consider adding a reset button to the mechanical counter or would it be too hard to push down at this scale?

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

It would be too hard to do, add too much complexity.

morgante• 11 years ago

This is an awesome educational tool: the large size makes it really easy to see and understand how combination locks work.

agumonkey• 11 years ago

All these rotating pieces reminded me of Sussman's talk on watches http://video.mit.edu/watch/an-electrical-engineering-view-of...

ImprovedSilence• 11 years ago

Wow that is a fantastic lecture! Shit brings me back to the undergrad days.

marincounty• 11 years ago

Just happened to be waiting for a Elgin 883 movement to finish drying from a clean/rinse cycle. Killing time on HN, and I happen to run across this referral to a video.

Watch repair can be fun, and it really doesn't cost a lot to get into on a hobby level. There's lots of books on watch repair, and most are out of copyright. The debate of mechanical watches comes up every so often. That Bulova watch he takes the Balance Wheel out of will literally last a life time with proper care.

In the video, he mentions he doesn't know how the Bulova Accutron 360 gear is manufactured(you need to inspect it with a 30X scope). I have always been curious about this topic. If anyone knows, I'd appreciate the info. I know about watch lathes, and hand turning. I don't know how the factories mass produce these gears, what machines they use.

owly• 11 years ago

Very cool!

bhudman• 11 years ago

I try to visit his site every Friday. I like his no nonsense videos.

mullingitover• 11 years ago

I'm skeptical of a security mechanism that can be defeated with a match and some lighter fluid.

However, as an art piece this is impressive.

mhuffman• 11 years ago

That is pretty much every building a lock is meant to secure, no?

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

Well, in that case, spend $5 and buy a padlock.

penguat• 11 years ago

The point of a lock is twofold (in most cases* ). First, to discourage casual/opportunistic access. Second, to make unauthorised access evident. I believe this lock meets those criteria, albeit at a minimal level - but it's purpose is to educate, rather than to directly secure.

* In specialised cases the expectation is that the lock will also take a finite amount of time to get through, which may exceed that of the door, allowing for a response to alarms, for example. In other cases a lock may be designed such that the contents would be destroyed by any action which would defeat the lock.

vvpan• 11 years ago

Not to diminish Matthias' amazing abilities, but only to highlight the challenges that go into making anything out of wood: plywood, isn't really wood per se. If you built things out of wood you'd have to worry about grain direction, because cross-grain strength in wood is very low. This adds a whole another level of complexity to the engineering process.

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

Most things I make aren't made of plywood. Yes, you have to be aware of poor crossgrain strength (varies with species) as well as seasonal shrinkage and expansion from humidity changes.

wlmsng• 11 years ago

Really interesting! What got you into woodworking?

MatthiasWandel14• 11 years ago

Always had access to my dad's wood shop. Wood is fast and easy to work with - unlike metal.

ableal• 11 years ago

And wood smells better.

(I don't dislike oiled metal, but for me there's something about waxed wood that's really on the nose ;-)

kitd• 11 years ago

Fantastic! The whole site is great. My kids have been pestering me to let them do stuff like this and I didn't really know where to start.

Bookmarked.

Wooden combination lock

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