Cylinder Picking Tip

Sometimes being a locksmith technician mean improvising in order to find a solution for a job. I got a call a while back from a customer who apparently misplaced the key to her home and couldn't get in. Knowing lockout situations are my field of expertise, I accepted the job and headed out to the customer location. When I got to the location I did a quick inspection to evaluate the situation. It seem that the customer's front door was equipped with Pella handle sets that had profile type cylinders.

The first thing I usually do in these types of situations is trying to pick the lock. However, in that particular situation it was a little difficult since the handle-sets had over-sized levers. Eventually, I was able to pick the cylinder, but for some reason as I turned the lever to open the door, nothing was happening. I tried picking it again couple other times, but it didn't seem to help. I even tried picking it in the other direction, but that attempt was not successful as well. At that moment, I figured I would have to have a matching key that will help turn the cam to completely unlock the door.

The issue was getting the key inside the cylinder after I pick it since all the pins will be neutralize at that point. After messing around with my pick tool a little more, I decided to stop for fear i might eventually break it inside the cylinder. I moved on to my second option which was using a bump key, but not only it did not helped as well, the customer was starting to get a little nervous from me banging that key against her door's vintage handle-set. Just as it seem things would not get any better, I came up with an idea to cut a DE6 blank key to #7 cuts and use it along with picking to give me the extra grip turning the lock open. Once I got the key ready, I picked the cylinder again and this time I turned it a quarter turn only. I then inserted the custom key that I made and was able to further turn the rest of cylinder enough to retract the bolt and the door was finally open!  

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Lock Repair in Spokane

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Ford Ignition Lock Tip

As a locksmith technician, during many years in the field, you tend to run into the same issues with similar jobs over and over again. One of those repeating problematic situations that I recall is working with Ford 10 cut ignition models. The recurring issue with these type of ignitions is that the ears become loose over time. That type of situation will create difficulty in the proper operations of the key with the ignition. Usually, the solution for this common problem, is replacing the ignition lock, with an addition of instructing the customer not to put too much force on the ears while operating the key, otherwise, the problem will happen again.

After dealing with this type of issue repeatedly servicing Ford ignitions, I came up with a good solution that will prevent the ears on the ignition to come loose again no matter what. First thing first is obviously remove the ignition from the steering column followed by removing the cylinder plug from it as well. Now it is required to insert a proper Ford key blank in order to align the ears with the key-way. Next, locate the groove that held the ears to the cylinder plug.Then, drilling a small hole on the side where the metal on the plug seem to be a little thicker followed by dropping a little epoxy into the hole and insert a roll pin into it. Once the epoxy dries, a little filing on the pin will be required to flush it straight with the plug. This will permanently cause the ears to be attached to the plug.

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Commercial Lock Re-Key Service

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GM Ignition Tip

As a locksmith technician key origination level of difficulties tend to vary a lot from vehicle to vehicle. Most of the time the ignition cylinder would need to be access and removed in order to look at the code that will allow to originate a new key. However, I found out that on some mid 90's GM vehicles, having a working door key can make the job much easier. From my experience I can confirm the above is true for 95-00 Oldsmobile Aurora models. It seemed to me that the bittings for the door key are the same as for the ignition key. The only different is that the door key is usually being cut using a standard GM 10 cut blank and the ignition key is a VATS 10 cut blank key.

With the information I got from GM, that model intended to have the key fits all models. According to GM, there is a reason that there are two keys being used for the vehicle(one for the door and one for the ignition). The reason would be since they couldn't figure out how to make the VATS ignition key to open the door because the VATS chip seem to interfere with insertion of the key inside the lock. Because of that, GM decided to use two different keys that would work using the same bittings. This may work on mid to late 90's various Buick models.

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Automotive Lockout Winter Solution in Spokane

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Door Knob Bumper Guard

Every time I will get a call for a re-key job, usually for a house, I would inspect all of the exterior structures which include the house gate(if equipped) and the garage as well. This helps me usually to inform the customer I can provide the re-key services on these structures as well which will give him the option to use the same key on these structures and at the same time will help me to increase my ticket sale. In order to encourage the customer to make the decision, I explain him that later on if there will be a need to re-key the property by a professional locksmith, it will be done without requiring the purchase of new locks, etc since all of the cylinders would be on the same key-way. Most of the time, the customer agree to have all of the exterior structures of the house to be re-keys since it means dealing with less keys to keep track of. At the same time, it is a good opportunity for me to increase my sell by selling new padlocks or locks to fit the exterior structures such as the gate.

One more are that I usually inspect is the walls behind the doors for possible damage from hitting it with the knob every time the door opens. This usually allow me to sale the home owner, or property manager a door bumper wall protector cover plate that can be found on most hardware stores. These plate will usually be mounted on the wall just behind the impact point of the knob with the wall to avoid more damage. I usually won't charge much  for them installed, and the homeowners or property managers go for them most of the time as it saves them money from fixing future damage to the wall

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Key-Less Entry Lock System

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Kwikset Key Extraction

I recently got a call from a customer who seem to break his key inside the lock while trying to unlock the front door of his home. Once I got to the job site, I came to find that the customer was actually trying to use the wrong key which resulted in the key being jammed inside the lock and broke. Like any other key extraction job, I tried using my extractor tool, but for some reason it didn't work very well.

Instead of trying to drill the cylinder in order to unlock the door, I decided to try one last trick in order to remove the broken key from the lock. I drilled a small hole for a little more than half of an inch deep in the larger part of the key blade that I could actually see. Next step, I inserted a spiral type extractor tool into the hole I drilled and made sure it was tightly fitted. Then, I used a pair of needle nosed pliers at the end of the spiral extractor tool and started pulling on the pliers and at the same time tapped the top of the pliers with a small hammer.

Even though the broken piece was tightly jammed inside the key-way of the lock, I was still able to extract it out using the process described. When I finally got the broken piece out, I noticed it was a Kwikset type key, but the lock on the front door was a Schlage. Out of curiosity, I asked the customer how he manged to get the key that far in, he answered that he thought there was ice inside the lock and decided to force the key in using a hammer borrowed from his neighbor.

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Mortise Locks

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