INDUSTRIAL LANE = SPOOLS

[Luke]

Hey i have this industrial, rectangular shaped pin tumblar made by LANE. I could never pick it or shim it. I took it to a locksmith and it had a ristricted keyway so he took it out the back, 4 snaps later he brought the lock out, he had opened it in about 10 seconds, i was thinking it was just a normal lock and just talked to the guy - i will come back to this in a sec. When i got home i took it apart, OMG it was a seven pin tumblar, i then removed the follower and stared in disbelief, there were seven Spool pins!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was just amazed at that fact and thought i should tell everyone, and just show off that im not such a bad picker after all even though i spent hours on that lock.
Anyway back to that conversation i had with the locksmith. When he came out i said "Nice snapping, what pick gun u own?" He said "I own a few but the one i used then was one from the states, a AGL" (WTF is an AGL) He then said " Alot of people think a pick gun is practacly a key, but there is a big difference between owning a pick gun and knowing how to use it. I took me 4 years before i was confident i could open any pin tumblar i came accross in less than 1 minute with the pick gun." I said "Sheesh so for 4 years u couldnt open a lock" HE said "No ofcourse i could, i mean i didnt feel confident time wise, i had to get to know what was happening, what sort off lock, aging, or in the case of that lock i suspected there were Mushroom pins it it." Anyway i will cut the conversation there. But wow that smith has style, 10 seconds for a lock with 7 mushroom pins and he didnt even seem proud. Anyway thats it for the story, but while im here i mayswell get this off my mind, alot of the locksmiths that ive talked to call what i call a plug a barrel and what i call a tension wrench a tension bar. Must have somthing to do with what terminology the TAFE in Heidelburg teaches em. Well any way i think i might not even bother trying to hand pick that lock, sheesh 7 spool pins.
Cheers,
Luke

[marso]

Thanks for the story.

[Luke]

no probs, im still in state of shock, 7 spools arg.

[Chucklz]

Are all 7 pins spooled the same? IE, is one serrated, one have a spool area on the bottom, one up a little higher on the lock? I think its kind of odd to see a lock with all top pins spooled, because it makes key removal, insertion kind of difficult. Whatever this lock was on, the owner must have been willing to sacrifice some convenience for security.

[Luke]

All the pins are spooled the same - with standard spool pins in all seven positions.

[Varjeal]

I chuckled when I read this post because on Monday I went to rekey a business downtown that had glass/aluminum doors with some pretty worn pin-tumbler mortise cylinders in the front doors. I took 'em apart and each had 5 spool pins in all driver positions.

[Chucklz]

No problems with key removal? Where I am, your not going to find a lock with a full set of spool drivers, always one normal, or different pin so that its easy to remove the key. Well Im glad I learned something today.

[Varjeal]

I haven't seen a lock full in couple of years either, (with the exception of Papaiz padlocks, grrrrrr) so I was quite suprised. Plug pin holes were ovalled a bit, but otherwise in fine shape.

[Darek84CJ]

Why does all spools make it difficult to remove the lock?

[Chucklz]

To remove a key, the top/bottom pins must be aligned. All spool pins allow for the slightest bit of play, so that you must pull on the key when the top/bottom pins are pretty much exactly aligned to remove the key. A reall pain if you use the lock very often.