Schlage Repinning Tip

[irate-turtles]

Howdy,

I was browsing through LP101 looking for tips on conquering Schlage, and I noticed that another user made the same mistake that I did of accidentally destroying a spring while repinning a Schlage, so I thought I'd give a quick tip/warning on how to avoid this.

This first happened to me when I was repinning a Schlage to two pins, and I managed to get a top pin and spring stuck in a lower plug hole. After lifting the spring to the shear line, I rotated the plug, and the spring got stuck in one of the blind holes drilled in the side of the plug (shown below).



Once a spring gets stuck in one of those holes, there's no way to get it out without breaking it unfortunately.

Basically, if you're repinning a Schlage lock and get a top pin/spring stuck in a lower hole, make sure to rotate the plug counterclockwise after lifting the spring to the shear line.

[cledry]

So you forgot to put a bottom pin in a chamber that had a top pin and spring? Next time slide the cap off and dump it or lift the driver above the shear line. Those extra holes I think are for construction keying.

[irate-turtles]

No, I had the key in the plug when I was placing the plug back in (which I learned is a bad idea) and when I pulled the key out, the plug slid forward one hole with the key and the top pin and spring shot down into the second hole (which had no bottom pin), and then the spring got caught after I lifted it to the shear line and rotated the plug clockwise.

Lifting the whole top pin to the shear line would've solved it as well if I'd thought of it at the time...

And the top cap is very firmly crimped in place, I felt I would've run the risk of breaking the crimped tabs if I'd tried to take the cap off. (based off of ~1 years experience in a machine shop and not being sure what kind of metal the tabs were made of)

As for construction keying, thanks for enlightening me! That's very interesting, I never would've guessed that's what they were used for.

[irate-turtles]

For anyone else that drops by here, lockrite and lunchb0x explain construction keying.
http://www.lockpicking101.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=44641

[cledry]

No, I had the key in the plug when I was placing the plug back in (which I learned is a bad idea) and when I pulled the key out, the plug slid forward one hole with the key and the top pin and spring shot down into the second hole (which had no bottom pin), and then the spring got caught after I lifted it to the shear line and rotated the plug clockwise.

Lifting the whole top pin to the shear line would've solved it as well if I'd thought of it at the time...

And the top cap is very firmly crimped in place, I felt I would've run the risk of breaking the crimped tabs if I'd tried to take the cap off. (based off of ~1 years experience in a machine shop and not being sure what kind of metal the tabs were made of)

As for construction keying, thanks for enlightening me! That's very interesting, I never would've guessed that's what they were used for.

Actually it is a good idea to have the key in the plug when putting it back in; here's why.

Occasionally, especially when master keying but occasionally when you do a regular rekey the stack height will not allow the key to pull out of the lock. So you simply slide the plug back out and change your top pins and possibly the springs. Now if you did the same thing with the key out you wouldn't be able to slide the key in to correct the problem. Sometimes you can still shim the lock open or remove the cap but this is more work and time. Time is money.

To remove top caps easily use an old hacksaw blade, tap it down and in the direction so the teeth grab the cap sliding it out. To reinstall bend the cap in a V and then place it back in place and flatten it out. An old file works well for flattening the cap.