Locksmithing and Security

I’ve been playing around sorting my own front door out. You know the saying: the cobbler’s kids are the poorest shod.

Well someone in the family lost their keys and I went to change the cylinder. (Which we can do for you of course. And maybe for less than you think. If anyone tells you you’ll need a new lock, say no and come to us. We’ll change the cylinder or the levers at a third of the price.)

Ever since we’ve moved in, I’ve vaguely noted the locks weren’t that well fitted. It’s always a fiddly business, lining up the cylinder with the lock but this just wouldn’t have it. I squinted through the hole and saw that the lock backplate was miles off centre. The backset (distance from door edge to cylinder centre) turned out to be 35 mm for a 40 mm backset Yale #2 lock. It’s a miracle (and a thick door) that the original cylinder ever worked at all. There was no way the cylinder I wanted to put in was going to work. (I wanted to re-pin the handle so that the inside key and the outside key were the same once again. So that meant fitting a cylinder that was the 6-pin version of the inside keyway. And it meant I could use an accidental purchase that had been hanging around in stock for months.)

There was nothing for. I would have to move the cylinder. Out came the trusty old curtain pole which is my source of 32 mm wooden dowel and I plugged the old hole. I decided to sort another couple of things out at the same time. The cylinder lock had originally been fitted at waist height whereas it would normally be at a thirteen-year-old’s eye height. And they’d wasted the only place in the door that would take a large mortice lock, on this poorly-fitted cylinder lock. And I wanted for various reasons to fit a particular mortice lock that was a little on the large size. So here was my opportunity to free up the space. So the cylinder lock went back in a foot higher.

Then I set to fitting my mortice lock. And the troubles began. Normally I use a magnet before fitting a customer’s lock in case there are any lumps of steel in the door that are going to break my mortice cutter. But as I was constrained to fit my new lock in exactly one position I didn’t bother with the magnet. And, yes, there was an enormous steel noggin just protruding into the mortice cavity. I sorted that out and then went to fit the equally enormous keep box to the frame. I couldn’t believe it but there was another enormous lump of metal in the way!

I’ve never encountered a customer’s door that was so much trouble and long may that continue.

Hopefully back again after a hiatus for holidays and blog software malfunctions.

What’s been happening? Well I think I reached the point where I need checklists to remind me to read my checklists. I was scheduled to replace a cylinder in a garage door. Now garage doors don’t often have cylinders. Usually they just have a cheap wafer lock built into the handle. But this one was in a better league and had a proper cylinder. (If you’re popping out to check yours, it’s easy enough: where does your key go? Does it go into something that looks like a front door “Yale” with  a circular front at least an inch across? If so — good. Does it go into something that looks like an upside-down pear / exclamation mark? If so — good. If it goes into something circular that’s about half-an-inch across and looks to be part of the handle, well, not quite so good.)

Anyway, this was a cylinder and garage door cylinders are usually what are called half (or single) euro-profile (the pear shape) cylinders. (There’s usually no need to be able to lock them from the inside.)

This does mean, though, that one method for opening, when the key has been lost, is unavailable. So I made a note that just in case I couldn’t pick the lock open, I should ensure that the drill was on board. And as I have a habit of grabbing the drill but forgetting the drill bits, I dutifully made sure I grabbed the drill bits as well.

When I got there I’d remembered everything except the picks! All I had was a small wallet of basic picks, a bit like you see in the movies. I was tempted just to go back and get the full kit, since the basic picks are not all that easy; but I thought I should save some exhaust fumes, be more positive and give it a go. And — glory be — it opened.

Even one of the locksmith bulletin boards I’m on can’t get this one right!

A rim lock is one that is fixed to the inside face of the door. (Although it would not surprise me if one of the national call centres’ operatives, whose work I was tidying up after yesterday, had fitted a rimlock to the outside face of a door! Remember: the nationals are good at advertising and staffing call centres in a “cost effective way”; they are not good at locksmithing, plumbing, carpentry, …)

The alternative to a rim lock is a mortice lock. This is one that has been fitted into a chiseled-out hole (the mortice) in the door. As long as the door’s thickness is 44 mm or more, a mortice lock is usually more secure.

A different kind of classification (and this is where even my trade association’s bulletin board gets it wrong), is the way in which the lock works: most often the tumblers are either pins or they are levers. And normally pin tumblers are fiddly and small enough that they are encased in a, usually removable, cylinder. So pin tumbler locks can usually also be called cylinder locks.

The most common pin tumbler cylinder lock on wooden doors in the UK is the five-pin Yale. The most common mortice lock in London is the Chubb 114, which is a five-lever mortice lock.

Often, but definitely not always, a pin tumbler/cylinder lock is a rimlock and a lever lock is a mortice lock.

Well, if you care, hopefully that’s been of help.

Oh. Back, briefly, to the nationals. They are the ones with the huge adverts in the phone books where there are no local phone numbers visible. Naturally, I am going to say that 90% of the time, you’d be better off with a local tradesman (I wish I could say 99%, but there we are; I’d also like a Goldwing for Christmas). And if you are a local tradesman who’s kindly offered an 0800 or 0845 number, my advice would be to show your landline number as well, so that people can have confidence that you are local.