It is undisputed that handcuffs are a fun and sexy part of the hacker culture...

... half the fun of being in them is successfully removing them without the use of a key (see above video links). Of course, this can be achieved both through conventional picking or by means of a shimming tool. Some of the best handcuff shims are made and sold by the folks at SERE Pick. Their thin and flat cuff shim...

... has an eyelet for good retention within a garment and for more effective handling. Their tool is made of very robust spring steel and will successfully open nearly all handcuffs that we've come across provided they are not double-locked. (No shim will open and handcuff that is double-locked, of course.) In the past, i have also seen competing outfits sell similar items, but often at higher prices and lower quality.

However, what if you are interested in playing with a handcuff shim or two but you are not a covert operator with an account at SERE Pick? (Well, you could always just ask us to introduce you to those fellows... if you are an established member of the security scene and we vouch for you, chances are those gentlemen will be more than happy to deal with you.) Would you believe that there is a very simple, very effective, and very cheap item on the market that can be turned into a handcuff shim with virtually no tools and no time?

Many of you have shopped for lockpick tools at Southern Ordinance. Something in their product line with which you may not be familiar, however, is their Number 11 Tension Tool...

Let me be clear from the start... this is not my favorite tension tool when it comes to lockpicking. In fact, i think it may be among the most unused tension tools ever made due to its exceedingly thin size. Don't let our friends at SouthOrd hear me talk like that, however, for i fear it might make them second-guess the selling of this product. For you see, while it may be the last thing you'd ever reach for when opening a lock, it's one of the best items i've ever come across when it comes to opening handcuffs.

The SouthOrd Number 11 Tension Tool can be turned into an excellent handcuff shim (two of them, in fact!) un almost no time, using only a pair of pliers to help you along. Here's how...

Making A T-11 Handcuff Shim

The T-11 tension tool is a bent piece of flat steel approximately 3¼" long, with a ½" head at a right angle...

Start by flattening out the metal, resulting in a piece of thin steel that is just shy of 4" long overall...

Snap the steel in half (just by grabbing it with pliers and bending back and forth a couple times) to give yourself two pieces of steel. Each will be about 1 & 7/8" long...

Grab a small piece of this steel with your pliers, exposing 1" of free metal...

Bend this to about a 120° angle...

Grab about ¼" further down on the short end (now with only about ½" of metal still in the pliers) and prepare to bend the other direction...

Bend the metal over as far as you can (the pliers will prevent you from going further)...

Grab the metal by whatever other means you can in order to complete this bend and fully fold the metal at this point...

Grab the remaining ¼" of metal on the short end and bend it back the other way, completing the formation of a small "Y" shape...

These types of shims are used on the side of the cuff featuring the large bow arm (single piece of metal, not two segments of metal if viewed from the side)...

Insert the shim in under the bow until it stops (it will not go very far, as the teeth will begin obstructing it)...

However, provided the cuff is not double-locked, you can attempt to sink the shim in deeper during the exact moment that you click the bow tighter by one notch. I have found that this unique "Y" shape makes it particularly easy to perform this feat using just one hand...

The bow should now be able to be advanced outward and the cuff will open...

Sometimes, higher security handcuffs will be manufactured with multiple pawl arms inside the cuff body...

... in those instances, take care to insert the shim directly in the middle of the bow channel, not off to the side. This will help ensure that you are successfully catching all of the pawls simultaneously, allowing the bow to release...

So... the next time you're ordering some pick tools online, drop a couple TW-11's into you shopping cart and give this a try! Unless, of course, you're ordering from some other online pick shop, hah. However, if anyone who reads this is ordering locks or tools from my site and if they shoot me a follow-up email after submitting things through PayPal, i'll be happy to drop a TW-11 into your envelope as long as i have some of them laying around.

Good luck!