Locksmithing and Security

I’ve just been to replace a lock. The lock I was replacing was the worst fitting I’ve ever seen. They hadn’t drilled out the cylinder hole to the correct diameter so there was no room for the security sleeve that normally wraps around the cylinder, they had recessed the keep into the frame on the wrong axis, which meant that they’d then had to recess the lock too deeply into the door in two axes, all of which meant that the back of the lock was impinging the end of the cylinder.

And to make matters worse, this was one of the most expensive and interesting locks on the market–a Chubb Ava auto-deadlocking rimlock–or 4L67. This is a very nice lock: it can’t be slipped; it’s strong and it’s almost unpickable. The key is very unusual looking; although if you have a Ford or a Jaguar or a motorcyle chain lock from Abus, you would recognise the style of key. It starts life as a cylinder and then has flats machined on it at different angles. These flats rotate unsprung discs inside the cylinder. Chubb use this lock on their high-security filing cabinets. It’s one of the few rimlocks achieving the BS3621 lock standard.

So, if your rimlock (your “Yale”) looks like an ordinary Yale at first glance, but has a square bolt and a key with no teeth, treat it nicely, don’t lose your keys and don’t get locked out, both of which would be very expensive.

Oh, and Chubb don’t supply the cylinder on its own! You always have to replace the entire lock.

Chubb as a company disappeared long ago. Very cleverly it sold its brand name in several pieces. Chubb safes went one way. Chubb fire went another. And Chubb locks went to Assa.

The agreement to use the name on locks is expiring and, in a burst of madness, the use of the name isn’t or can’t be renewed. So the name is disappearing from locks. We are assured that the locks will still be made in the same way and at the same place and carry the same model numbers. But the branding will be distributed among Yale and Union, which are also brand names owned by Assa.

Let’s hope they do remain available. Because among all the really, really tawdry rubbish comprising 90% of the output from China that shortsighted “manufacturers” foist upon us, Chubb’s, as far as I know, was made outside China, and remained well made.

I like making keys for old locks. It’s a satisfying piece of work to accomplish. And you get to see inside old locks.

I’ve had two this week. The striking thing is the amount of metal used in old locks compared with today. The first was an old lever rim deadbolt made of iron — very heavy and very large. Although the levers were enormous slabs of brass mostly the inside was an empty cavern. The second was an ancient Chubb lever mortice deadbolt. Again it was heavy — very solidly built compared with today’s pressed lock cases — although it should be said that Chubb’s locks today are still some of the most solidly built.

The main problem with making keys for old locks is getting decent blanks. Today’s large steel key blanks are horrible to cut or file as they’re full of inclusions; and the blades are often poorly welded onto the stems and break off too easily. In future I must ask customers if they’d prefer to pay the extra and have a brass key. Being very large, brass is going to cost quite a bit more.

What does it mean when a lock is BS (that’s “British Standard” rather than bullshit)? Does that mean that my insurance company will be happy? (This post is largely addressed to the UK.)

Well you can be fairly sure that a BS lock is reasonably good. However, the reverse does not necessarily apply. Just because a lock isn’t BS, it doesn’t mean that it’s of lesser quality. Two of the best locks ever — the Ingersoll SC71 and the Chubb 110 have not been BS for much of their career. Yet if you have that pair of locks on your door, a skilled locksmith will have a very tough time getting you in, so a thief is in for an almost impossible time. Although as we’ve said many times, the locks on the front door are only secondary in importance to physical strength of the door and frame, the illumination, the state of the window locks and what’s around the back.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that your insurance company will be happy either. I’m afraid you really do have to read the policy. The commonest thing your insurance will ask for is a five-lever mortice deadlock on the final exit door (the one you can’t bolt from the inside because you will be on the outside). It might go further and ask for a BS 3621 five-lever mortice deadlock. It might just ask for a BS 3621 lock.

If you do have the excellent Chubb 110 and your insurance policy asks for a five-lever deadlock you ought to get written confirmation (good luck) that the Chubb 110 is acceptable (as it should be) since for technical reasons lost to the mists of time, Chubb decided to term the 110 a five-detainer lock. It is, as I’ve already mentioned, at least as good as, if not better than your typical five-lever lock.

Not all mortice deadlocks are lever locks. In the States, for example, very few locks are lever locks. The other main kind of lock is a pin tumbler lock. Your Yale latch lock will almost certainly be a pin tumbler lock. So what? Well if you squint into your pin tumbler lock’s keyway, you will actually be able to see the pins. They’re little brass pins of a couple of millmetres diameter. If you can see them though, you can attack them. The lever tumblers of a lever lock are deep inside the lock and way more difficult to attack.

It could turn out then, that you have a pin tumbler cylinder operated mortice deadlock on your door. If you have, its key will not be the traditional “keyhole” kind of key with a blade and a stem. Instead your key will be a “Yale” style key turning in a cylinder and with the cylinder operating the deadbolt. Again, if your insurance policy asks for a five-lever mortice deadlock, then you might not be covered. Get written confirmation.

If you have a pair of keyed-alike (same key operates both) Banham locks, which are quite common in London, and your insurance asks for a five-lever deadlock, once again you should get written confirmation that your locks are acceptable. Banham do produce a fine lever lock but the typical pair of Banham locks encountered on London doors will both be cylinder operated and neither, therefore, will be a five-lever lock.

I had a couple of safes to open a little while back. One was an elderly Chubb and the other was a more recent Dudley. Both were key locks. Safes are divided roughly 60:40 in the UK between key locks and combination locks whereas in the States they’re nearly all combination locks. Of course, key locks are much more difficult for the safe engineer to open. Anyway, these two need different techniques so I started with the one that needed the venerable Hobbs pick. (I’ll come back to Mr Hobbs another day in another post.)

First you get as comfortable as you can. Other locksmiths poke fun at my collapsible chairs but hey. Then you get acquainted with the levers — seven in this case. You’re doing a couple of things here but it’s quite repetitious. You either get bored on unlucky days or you enter a Zen-like altered state on lucky days. This was a lucky day.

I wasn’t aware of it — that’s the point — but after five minutes there was almost nothing in my mind except a growing picture of my friends the levers. What I was also unaware of was that the lights had gone out; this was a basement of a delicatessen undergoing refurbishment and they’d cut the power to install some board or other and they’d told everyone but me.

So there I was in a gloomy corner, dressed in black (good for the image), forehead resting on a safe door, making no noise except for the occasional and pleasing click of a tumbler; and there was the electrics board that was about to be replaced, above my head. The electrician walked in pointing her torch high up at the board. I wouldn’t have heard her even if she’d been wearing wooden clogs.

I think we both screamed. I certainly lost all the levers.

Still, I don’t normally need meditation classes.