Fairly scary occurance

[ZiRo]

I just bought a yale cylinder lock, pretty standard. Not the 6 pin.

I took the plug out and for a little play I inserted an ERA key into the plug and watched the pins line up except the near pin. 2 were perfect, 2 were near enough, and the near pin was a good 3mm out of the cylinder.

I reassembled the cylinder minus the near pin. Inserted the ERA key and it opened the yale lock minus one pin.

Bit strange.

[UWSDWF]

I may be having a newb moment but wtf is an ERA key?

[Tattoo Guy]

ERA is a brand name and quite a lot of cylinders in the UK use the same key blank as YALE therefore keys from different cylinders will often fit into other branded locks.

[UWSDWF]

so his scary occurence is that he put a badly cut non-brand key into a brand name lock of the same keyway configuring and when taking out the troubled pin it worked?

[Tattoo Guy]

sorry for the double post but this thread reminds me of one I started a while back entitled one in a million

viewtopic.php?t=10321&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

and while there are often millions of combinations for key cuts its surprising how similar some can be when you compare your stock

[Bud Wiser]

sorry for the double post but this thread reminds me of one I started a while back entitled one in a million

viewtopic.php?t=10321&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

and while there are often millions of combinations for key cuts its surprising how similar some can be when you compare your stock

it shouldn't be surprising really. With millions of possible combinations, natrually most will be similar. And with tolorances being as they are, similar is not always a good thing.

[devildog]

Here's the key to an Abus Discus I've got (brand new, straight from the factory, no masterkeying etc.) next to a Falle-Safe rake that I can just stick in the keyway and jiggle a bit and it pops right open

[Shrub]

I did a job a few months ago which was a Yale cylinder, i inserted the SO rake and lifted up only to see the plug turn lol

[ZiRo]

so his scary occurence is that he put a badly cut non-brand key into a brand name lock of the same keyway configuring and when taking out the troubled pin it worked?

Actually ERA is quite a common brand next to Yale.

[greyman]

it shouldn't be surprising really. With millions of possible combinations, natrually most will be similar. And with tolorances being as they are, similar is not always a good thing.

I think he said it was a 5-pin cylinder. If Yale uses 10 depths of cut, and it might be only 9, the maximum number of combinations is only 100,000. But with a MACS of around 6 (I think Yale uses a rather wide cut angle), the number of practical codes is more like 60,000. If the tolerances are not great, and the key can wiggle a bit, there may only be 2000 codes or less that are significantly different. Hence your chances of fluking it open with a different key are actually not that bad.

Someone who knows might like to correct me on the actual YALE specs since I don't know them.

[UNFORGIVEN]

I just bought a yale cylinder lock, pretty standard. Not the 6 pin.

I took the plug out and for a little play I inserted an ERA key into the plug and watched the pins line up except the near pin. 2 were perfect, 2 were near enough, and the near pin was a good 3mm out of the cylinder.

I reassembled the cylinder minus the near pin. Inserted the ERA key and it opened the yale lock minus one pin.

Bit strange.

i fitted a ERA replacement cylinder the other day brand new out of the box and when i looked at the keys 2 of them were ok but the other one (i wish i had taken a pic )
was near enough a blank lol with only 2 cuts in it
needless to say this key would never work in the cylinder ( yes i tryed it lol )
so i had to re-cut the key.
ive spoken to a fellow locki mate of mine and apparently little probs like that are quite common with ERA


has anyone else found this ?

ps sorry for hijacking thread was just touching on a bit more and sharing exsperiance with ERA products


regards

[EvoRed]

Yes, I had this too a couple of weeks ago where an ERA cylinder key basically resembled a blank..

I've often found their mortice locks to have three identical levers next to each other too. Something you don't really see with the likes of Chubb...

[dmux]

hahah yea, i have a few padlocks that i can put the rake in and use it like a key, its pretty cool

[raimundo]

I was doing a recomb last winter, it was a schlage c cylinder, 5 pin but drilled for 6 pins, I need about 15 new changes, so I cut them from a schlage original with numbers stamped (dont throw out original keys if they are somehow unneeded as for cylinders you master or recomb, you can use them later) when I got there and did the job, the customer looks at his new key and tells me its the same as the old key, I look at it, and D'oh, hes almost right, the only difference on the 6 pin was the first pin, all the rest was the same, and of course, the offset left even those that fit in the wrong places, so it was alright, except the customer remained unconvinced, later I sold him the job with the 15 keys anyway, useing my mesmerizing powers of persuasion.

[Tyler Durden]

Evo red
You say you don't really see the same levers next to each other with Chubb and i agree. however i have decoder a 114e with 2 levers the same next to each other. i was suprised and it threw me for a couple of minutes cause i wasn't expecting it. Have you ever picked/decoded a chubb where this has been the case?