VERY Clever Loki Puzzle Padlock Solved

This is the lockpicking lawyer, and what I have for you today is the Loki puzzle lock sent to me by puzzlox in Israel now puzzles are definitely outside my normal comfort zone, but I think this one is the exception, and I say that because it’s made of A normal production padlock I have spent thousands of hours visualizing and modeling the insides of locks in my head.

I’m hoping that gives me an advantage and a pretty big one, because the only review on the company’s website is from someone who took a month to fully solve it. I should also note that the list price is 219., so for that money I’m guessing there are some pretty serious modifications inside. In the event, I do take a while to uncover the puzzle secrets, I’m going to leave this timer running that way.

You’ll see if I need to edit out any period of inactivity, so let’s read the instructions and then we can get started. Okay Loki. He is the god of mischief, mayhem and disorder. I’m looking just quickly through here to see if there are any hints master of knots, I’m wondering if the title itself is a hint, maybe being a play on the words low key, I’m not sure, but the important part is here open. The lock then lock it again, don’t apply excessive force, contain small parts and ten dollars off your next purchase.

Okay, let’s get started. The obvious thing to do is try the key and that does not work see if there’s anything shaking around inside and clearly there is oh, the key works now and, of course, it’s not that easy. I’m wondering if there’s something if you have to hold it in a particular direction for the key to work, and that seems like it’s the case, okay, locked here and maybe just yep. There we go once again, it doesn’t work and okay. So we have.

Oh, that’s interesting. This locked up at the 45 degree mark will that release again, yep, okay, so whatever is dropping into here and locking it up in this position is also locking it at the 45 degree position, that’s interesting! Okay, we can fully unlock it and that should unlock this end of the shackle and since there isn’t that much of the shackle sticking in this hole, I’m guessing whatever’s holding us up, is on this side. You can see, there’s a hole that shouldn’t be there and I don’t know if you’ll be able to see that, but there’s a small post sticking up through a hole in the shackle and that’s what appears to be stopping this from opening. And I’m wondering if, okay, that pole seems to have dropped down when this is in the locked position, and maybe that pole is what falls down and allows us to open this.

So if that supposition is correct, we have a catch 22. 

Okay, this side of the shackle only releases if we’re in the unlocked position, assuming there’s no modification to the normal locking mechanism and this side of the shackle only releases when this is in the closed position. Okay, we can see this hole is just past. The pin 4 position, this hole is right on the pin 3 position. Actually, if we look through that hole, I don’t know if you’ll be able to see it, but the post that sticks up is a little bit offset in this direction.

So it’s probably just in the chamber in the pin 4 chamber, we have a screw there and I’m wondering if we can use the tip of the key to get that out. That is working. It’s not working very well, it’s moving a tiny bit. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be doing this, but I don’t think what I’m doing is off limits. So let’s just keep going and see if we can learn anything and yep there we go.

We got this out, we’re at least part way out and there’s nothing. I was hoping. Maybe there was a pole attached to it or something, but all I can see is, well it’s exactly what I’d expect to see, which is the bottom of the keyway. In fact, I’m guessing yep, you can even see the key being inserted. Oh that’s interesting, there’s a hole there.

I don’t know if you can see that and I don’t think that hole is what comes with the lock, oh and we’re locked up now. Okay – maybe there are you know, I said that post might lock things up at the at the 0 and 45 degree position. I’m wondering if this is what locks us up at the 45 degree position, because that hole may go all the way through the lock and maybe there’s something else that locks it up in chamber three. In fact, maybe we have to get that pole out, so the upper one can drop down into it and allow us to open the shackle, but that would require that we unlock this, that we turn this without having the key inserted. Assuming that hole goes all the way through, maybe if we just stick it in one position now two and we’re already blocking the hole.

So at this point it really doesn’t matter now: hmm, okay, right now, I’m pulling on the shackle to bind up this post. That’s holding it closed and you can still feel there is something rattling around. So I’m thinking there is almost certainly something in that number three chamber. I just have no clue how to get it out. Otherwise, I have no clue what else is rattling around inside with the way I’m holding this. There shouldn’t be anything left to rattle now.

This would be easy if I was allowed to use lock picks. I wonder if I can see if all the pins are in there. I can’t really see it’s too dark. Oh okay! This is something that only someone like me would notice.

Okay, if we look at the front of this lock, we can see there’s a little gap in between the key pin and the driver pin now. Normally you can only see that gap. If it’s one of the you know one two, maybe three highest cuts on the key, but here we have a really low cut, which makes me think this is master keyed. In fact, it would have to be master keyed, at least in that first chamber. Maybe I was right before: let’s try that again, with just keeping maybe the first one in second no and we’re already blocking that hole.

So why would this be master keyed? Okay? Maybe okay, I’m going to try something. I’m going to do something akin to raking the lock, but just using the key. If every single one of the chambers has one of those super short key pins, I might be able to set those pins without the key for it in a way that the entire key would come out. So I’m gonna put a little bit of tension on that core.

I’m holding it so that the pin that locks it up is dropped down so yeah. It should be free to turn and then, with that tension, just gonna rake the lock there we go. Okay, we did something here: okay, let’s see if we can line up that little hole and I see something down there: okay, something’s starting to come out, um come on get out there we go and if my theory is right, maybe that poll will drop down. No, it doesn’t feel like in fact nothing’s shaking now. Maybe this is not just a spacer.

Maybe this is now that just locks it up even more. No, it doesn’t push in any. I can’t see anything else down in that chamber. The lights here are pretty bright. Oh, oh, this is spring loaded.

That is not a solid pole in there. I can push that out of the way. This is a tool and we got this open folks, okay, 12 minutes, but we do have to open the lock. Then lock it again so we’re halfway through, let’s just reverse the order of that push down that little spring-loaded pole, oh okay! Now I see why that little hole is offset from chamber four.

This technique only works when you’re pulling the shackle out. I think let’s try this side nope. Okay, now we have the reverse catch 22. 

I can’t get the short end of the shackle in unless this is unlocked, and I can’t get the long side in unless it’s locked, at which time that little bar drops down. So when it’s unlocked that bar sticks out, I don’t know if you can see it on video down the hole and it drops down when it’s locked.

Okay. So how do we solve that catch-22? Oh, okay! So here’s the idea, let that bar drop through here when the shackles open that way I don’t have to stick both in and I’m hoping there’s enough play in the system. Let’s see, can we lock this?

Hmm, that’s! Oh there we go that ends locked, which means. Okay and as I said, pulling this trick only works when you’re pulling it out, but since we are pulling it out, okay, we have that dislodged and I’m hoping, if I’m really careful, I can slip this past the end. Okay, folks, I think we’re there. Okay, I have to use that raking trick again and it doesn’t seem to be working there.

We go okay and open up that little chamber, drop this back and put our screw back into place. Okay, that’s well below the surface! Now re-lock it uh! Oh we’re stuck! No we’re not okay, folks, I think that’s it almost 17 minutes. I have to say I really enjoyed discovering this lock secret and hats off to the designer.

I think it said right on here, Bose Feldman for really clever use of the chambers inside of here. Using master, keying and and actually a lock picking technique to uh to solve this puzzle, I can certainly see how that could take someone a really long time to figure out seeing that little gap in the key pin and driver pin clued me in, but to be Perfectly honest: I have no clue how I would have figured that out. If I did not have the experience that I do so folks, that’s all I have for you today. Well, it would appear that a follow-up is in order. I went online to see how other people had attacked this, and it turns out.

I missed something fairly significant hidden in the hem of this drawstring bag is another piece to the puzzle. It’s a small rod with a hex tip and that’s what you’re supposed to use to remove this little set screw. Apparently, my method of using the tip of the key is not the designed method, but it seemed to work. I think it was inbounds within the rules of the puzzle, so I’ll take my method as a win. So that’s really all I have for you now.

If you do have any questions or comments about this, please put them below. If you like this video and would like to see more like it, please subscribe and, as always, have a nice day. Thank you.