Originally Posted by KnhoJ
The heavy rust is actually a good indication: Steel dust will rust up like that given any motivation at all. Cutting that lock took a fair bit of work, the cut shows a lot of impatient seesaw action with the saw. The surface of the cut also suggests that the material was removed very slowly, that saw wasn't knocking loose nice clean chips, more like little grainy specks, I'd bet. And over enough time to reduce at least some of the kerf to powder, which would produce that rust right away. You can even see the rusty dust worked into the plastic of the lock.
I agree with this, but what I still can't wrap my mind around is WHAT exactly that guy was USING to cut the lock (according to the video). If it was a sawzall, that cut is ~ 1/4" wide, like ABH said, so I, too, highly doubt it was a sawzall. Besides, to use a sawzall, the object you cut needs to have good resistance, otherwise the reciprocation of the blade will drag the lock around making it impossible to cut. That means the OP locked his bike such that the lock was so stationary that the vibration from a sawzall did not move it around much; however that still does not explain the width of the cut. Then there's the theory of some sort of battery operated hand held grinder, but every grinder I've used throws sparks, and I didn't really see any sparks flying on the video, though I admit the thief is hidden by that column. I suppose he could have used his bag as a cover to catch the sparks, though. Lastly, both a sawzall and grinder will make noise as someone already mentioned. Too bad the camera doesn't pick up sound as well.
Originally Posted by Knohj
There's not much room to make these locks more difficult to cut. The material needs to be ductile enough to form, and must be possible to cut with reasonably standard tooling in order to create the functional details. Titanium isn't exactly hard to cut. Although it's softer than steel, it can work harden and dull tooling easily, but with the right tooling and cutting speed it cuts like butter. Whoever cut this lock wasn't deterred by a dull tool anyway, that lock was the end of the blade very early in the cut, he just kept going and scraped through with what was left. And although Stellite alloys would likely devour the average hardware store sawzall blade, would stellite roundbar survive a forming process? And even if an uncuttable lock could be created, would a thief hesitate to cut a $3000 frame to make off with $1000 worth of components?
The hope is that if the thief is some sort of druggie, he would not be spending his easy earned cash on cutting tools and carbide blades - unless he's somehow able to steal those as well. If one lock is able to defeat, say, 3-4 blades, then you make the thief have to carry around tons of blades plus extra batteries, and you make him/her have to stay around more than 2:40 minutes in order to get a bike. Plus you also make the thief have to acquire the right tooling. I am fairly sure that there is no portable, battery operated hand held machine readily available that someone can buy off the shelf to cut Ti or Stellite! A tool using grinding discs, maybe; but that would certainly be a battery drain if the hand held tool could even generate the power.
But if the thief, then, goes into the component business by just cutting your frame, then you're screwed anyway. At least that slimeball will have to carry around a broken frame! (That is, unless he gets one of these
bags.)