Over the years our mini-knives have changed a bit for various reasons. One reason was to make sure we made the very best, but of course those pesky lock manufacturers trying to block the tools was another. :-) A final reason has been that as thin as the material is, and at the given Rockwell, the knives could break at the handle if people didn't read the instruction, or if they were not careful enough.

I will talk about these three that I quickly gathered, plus one more not pictured here:

A. The brown one on the left was made from blackened carbon steel; As I measure it today it was 0.007 thick. Not a bad tool, but I was disappointment that they could grow rust spots over time.

B. A second one (not pictured) was the same material, but is was nickel plated. Got rid of the rust concern, but the tools were about 0.0075 thick because of the plating.

C. The orange one that is mores familiar to us all was made from Gov Steel. No longer needing to plate it for rust protection reduced the thickness back down to 0.007. That was important because on some locks the manufacturers had reduced the spacing between their dials and wheels to attempt to keep us from inserting the mini-knife. We still could, but it had to be carefully wiggled in so that the edges of the knife gently shaved off their brass casting next to the wheels.

D. We are very happy about this new green knife. It is still a stainless steel, but the thickness is now down to 0.006 thousandths. Backed off on the Rockwell just a tiny bit, and the length about 0.200 thousandths to overcome the breakage occurrences that could increase as the thickness decreased. I hope you are as happy as we are with these new tools!

NOTE: Only the green handles are left to purchase. We have included the picture of the previous versions to show how this tool has improved over the years!

Save big money with a three-piece set of Peterson Mini-knife Tools. These tools are packaged in a plastic tube with complete instructions. Reading these instructions prior to use is recommended. The Peterson Mini Knife Tool decodes most multi-wheeled combination locks found on padlocks, briefcases, cash boxes and countless other applications. Quickly opens Master Lock Model 745 and Sesame Series 400 padlocks without decoding. Quickly decode Presto 2470 and 2620 padlocks and Realtor type key lock boxes. Slip the ratchet and bypass most handcuff locks, including "Pearless" style handcuffs. Great for single locked cuffs, even those retrofitted with secondary lock systems. Packaged in a protective plastic tube with complete instructions.

On the later versions of the "key vault" a new security feature was was added to defeat our sidewinder: Now you can use our "SS-7 Hook" to reach in between the dials, lift up and pull their sidewinder "security feature" forward and decode as previously done with the sidewinder. :-)