How to Open Locks with Improvised Tools: Practical, Non-Destructive Ways of Getting Back into Just About Everything when You Lose Your Keys (formerly published as Lock Bypass Methods)

Practical, real-world solutions to lockouts. Learn to open doorknobs, deadbolts, car doors, padlocks, handcuffs, et cetera. This book sold out as "Lock Bypass Methods," and has proven to be the best manual on keyless entry available. Since your resources are usually on the other side of the door when you're locked out, it shows how to improvise tools from garbage and common, everday items. Multiple entrance options are provided in case of stubborn doors or limited materials. Thousands of people have successfully opened doors using techniques they learned in "Lock Bypass Methods." This expanded edition has more illustrations and new techniques.

This book will not waste your time trying to explain how to pick sidebar locks, or activate magnetic-stripe readers without a key card. It DOES explain how to open doors protected by these locks, simply and without damage, through bypass techniques. A latch holds something shut, and a lock is a gateway to that latch. This book teaches ways to climb over the fence and ignore the gate. You will learn how to pick locks, a skill that works 60-70% of the time. More importantly, you will learn methods to trip actuators, move linkage rods, take advantage of mechanical design flaws, exploit tolerances in a lock's setting, and other practical means of entry.

The book's focus is on problem solving, not presenting methods that are too difficult to accomplish. Many other books in this field suffer from too much theory and too little delivery. If it doesn't work, it isn't in here. This book is designed to give the reader skills that open locks without keys or damage. It is not a whitewashed or glossed-over set of instructions that leave a reader feeling as if failure is his fault and he just hasn't developed some special esoteric talent. Difficulties encountered in opening methods are identified, explained, and solutions are given to cope with them. The book is clearly written and illustrated, and covers problem solving, how locks work, picking, bypassing, and tool making. If you are interested in opening locks without keys, you should have this book.

Hans Conkel has been involved in locksmithing since 1994. His primary interests in the field are covert entry techniques and the investigation of criminal entry. Currently, he is writing "The Forensic Study of Forced Entry," which he hopes to finish in late 2002. Outside of locksmithing, he has two ongoing fiction projects and one mathematics project.