Construction Keying Help

[jpb06080]

Hi, I have a customer who needs information on construction keying. I have explained to him how it works, but he is the head of maintenance for a large college and needs pictures to show to his on site locksmith before ordering. Does anyone know where I can find a technical drawing of construction keying? His system is medeco, but any construction keying system will work fine. Thanks for any help.

[lockrite]

You could try the kwickset site.
In thier keying manual they do show a form of construction keying.
Not very clear though unless you know what you are looking at.
Off memory I think they refer to it as PK keying.
You could also request them to send you some more detailed information.

Even so I would have thought that your clients on site locksmith would have known about construction keying and how it works

[LocksmithArmy]

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might b silly but,

what is construction keying?

[lockrite]

locksmitharmy
The easiest way to explain it is.
Construction keying is like masterkeying
It is used mostly on construction sites. Hence the name
It is when a builder will have one key (master key) to open all the locks on site but when the indivdual key for that lock is used it will stop the "construction key" from working. This is most commonly done by the individual key allowing the constuction key pins to fall out of place from within the pin chamber when the key is inserted and turned.

[LocksmithArmy]

yeah done with like ball bearings and whatnot. the ball bearings act as the master pins and when you put the real key in, the ball bearings fall into another cavity and now only the new regular key works...
not sure if i ever herd it called that...not sure i ever herd it called anything, or maby it just slipped my mind...

thanks for the refresher

[lockrite]

Yeah you got it.
In Australia it is called construction keying.
May be called something else in other countries.

[lunchb0x]

If I remember I can bring a lock home from work tomorrow with the ball bearings for construction keying, but wont really be able to cut the keys and pin it to show you, the picture of the ball bearings in the chamber and also in the little hole for them to drop into should be enough though.

[lunchb0x]

Ok, hopefully this explains it enough, the construction key will have all but 1 or 2 cuts the same as the owners key, in the cuts that are different they will be cut slightly deeper, I measured the diameter of the construction ball bearings I have and they are .44 of an inch which is the same as a #3 master pin.

For this I am going by Lockwood depths, so say the owners key cuts are 36513 and the construction key is 34313, the ball bearings would be in the second and third chamber, when the construction key is used the ball bearings stay below the shear line, once the owner uses their key the ball bearings are lifted above the shear line and when the lock is turned they fall into the small hole so if someone tries to use the construction key the ball bearings would no longer be in the pin stack to make up the #3 depth for it to work.

All the ones I have found have 3 bearings in them, in my picture there are only 2 in the first chamber, I must of droped the third one somewhere, and just below the pins you can see the small holes for the bearings to drop into.

Hopefully this helps you if not I should be able to help you a bit more.