This is a tool for cataloging and archiving the codes and bittings for various ASSA Twin sidebars. Type in a sidebar code to look up the bitting, or vice versa. For information about how the ASSA Twin works and how to pick it, I recommend you read Han Fey's article and MMDeveloper's article.
Indirect codes irritate me, I don't know. You can use it to find what key blank you'd need to either make a key given a lock with no key but a sidebar, or make a duplicate of an existing, non-stamped key.
Sidebar codes are 3-digit codes, schemed with 0-9 and A, B, or C for the first digit and 0-9 for the second and third. A sidebar code uniquely identifies the 5 cuts for the sidebar. Sidebars are reversible, so ASSA has numbered them such that a given sidebar A when flipped is now A+1, i.e. sidebar 240 when flipped over is sidebar 241. These codes are completely indirect as far as I know and have no numerical correlation to the actual bitting of the sidebar.
Sidebar codes are typically stamped on the bow of the key in the bottom right corner. Sometimes they'll be absent entirely. Sometimes the profile will be included, sometimes not, sometimes with a space, sometimes a dash, sometimes just concatenated to the sidebar code. The profile is not important; you can ignore it and type in the rest of the code. If there is a leading zero, it may or may not be included. Why are there so many variables? I have no idea.
Some examples of sidebar codes:
Profiles for the Twin 6000 are almost always 62, 50, 51, or 52, if they're included (see here for more details). If you have a code like 51851, well, you could read that as 51-851 or 518-51. In that case you'll just have to search both. ASSA should really sort out their stamping.
I've seen sidebar codes stamped mostly on Twin 6000 and Twin V-10 keys, but it's possible for them to be included on any other ASSA Twin series key, with a few exceptions of "twins" that do not use the keyed sidebar mechanism that the other twins do. See the profiles page for more information.
There are only 5 possible heights in each position. Read them bow to tip. On a Twin 6000, a 5 is very nearly a zero cut into the warding of the key, whereas a 1 removes about 55% of the height. There is no MACs here, so 51515 is a valid bitting.
It's something you get a feel for after staring at enough Twin keys. If you're not sure, play around with typing bittings into the visualizer and see which is the closest to what you have.
If your lock doesn't have a key, or you're finding it tricky to read the key, you can always pull the sidebar out and read that. Read sidebars left to right. On a sidebar, the 5 positions are much more apparent — 5 is all the way at the top, 1 is all the way at the bottom, 3 is dead in the center, 4 is above the center but not quite the top, and 2 is below the center but not quite the bottom. Sidebars are foolproof as they don't vary at all between different Twins, as opposed to the side bitting which can be very difficult to read depending.
The fact that there are 5 positions and 5 possible cuts means there are 5*5*5*5*5 = 3125 possible sidebars. Of those, ASSA claims in their catalogs that they use 2805 of them, achievable with 1402 sidebars that can be reversed to produce another bitting, and 1 that cannot. I know exactly 25 are the same when reversed, due to a 3 cut in the middle and cuts for 1, 2 that match with cuts in 4, 5. For security reasons, ASSA excludes these from production, with one exception: the 545 sidebar is used for some factory cutaways and sales demos and is the one reversible sidebar. Additionally, there are 100 sidebars that use the same cut four times and 5 sidebars that use the same cut five times, and those are excluded from production as well. I'm not sure how ASSA arrives at the final count of 2805. If anyone does, do let me know.
Ping @Mow#8784 on the Lockpicker's United Discord.
Yeah I'm not surprised. Ping @Mow#8784 on the Lockpicker's United Discord.
Possibly! Go away, ASSA, I'm trying to do a thing here.