I guess what follows is 50% tutorial, 50% review. All the disassemby instructions apply to most rim cylinders and can be found in more user friendly forms in other parts of the forum.
This was the second rim cylinder I bought. The first was a very cheap and badly toleranced piece of pig iron branded PowerPlus. It served nicely to boost my confidence when I was able to pick it with ease using my first pick and tension wrench.
This lock however initially did a good job of making me pull my hair out and dashing my confidence all over the spool pinned rocks. I managed to pick it after about 40 minutes of poking, prodding and raking with a half diamond the first time and I knew that I had no idea how I’d done it - pure luck.
After this I allowed myself to take it apart and check it out - lo and behold, every single one of the 5 pins is a security pin, 4 spool pins and a serrated. A very nice find, but not neccesarily what I was looking for in my second cylnder.
I swapped out all but one security pin, practiced until I could pick it reliably, added another security pin and so on until it was back to its original condition. I’ve got my time down from 40 minutes to 15 seconds (on a good day).
I’ll take you through disassembling the lock, noting a few notable notes about it, as well as mentioning a couple of useful tips that I’ve picked up from here and a couple of things I’ve worked out myself.
Here are a couple of pics of the lock itself.
• To disassemble the first stage is to either pick the lock or use the key. I prefer to pick the lock because there’s no key in the way when you’re done.
• Once the lock is picked, spin the plug round so that the channel on the underneath clicks into place with the driver pins.
• Remove the circlip from the back so that the plug can be slid out from the hull of the lock.
• Remove the plug, a pick is a useful tool to push down the driver pins if they are binding the lock.
A plug follower is a good idea as this prevents you from damaging the driver pins and springs. It's also useful if you just want to change the key pins. The one I use is made from a piece of lemonade bottle, rolled into a cylinder. This expands to fill the interior of the lock’s hull and is something that you’re almost bound to be able to find around the house - much credit to the person on this forum who suggested this as a plug follower, it works very well and is easy to make.
• Pictures showing a key partially and fully inserted, demonstrating how the key pins align to the shear line. Also the classic pins in the cuts of the key pic.
• If you want to remove your driver pins and springs I have found that this is a good way to do it (you need to have a hollow plug follower). Put one end of the follower flat on the table, then slide the lock off it while your thumb seals the open end. The pins and springs will ping out and fall to the bottom. You can then collect them at your leisure.
• As the springs reach to the shear line I use a cocktail stick, with a bit of double sided tape around it to reseat the driver pins. Eyeball the spacing using the plug of the lock and with a wee bit of fiddly work and some mild swearing the pins will all be seated in their stacks. Wedge the end of the cocktail stick into the lower part of the keyway and slide the plug back in, moving the stick with it as you go, but keeping its axis over the top of the driver pins. You’ll want to do this while all the pins are facing up (the plug is still upside down, with the drivers facing into the channel) and it is much easier when the lock is in a vice.
And that’s about that, it’s a nice wee lock and I learned a lot from it. I’m pleased to have got 5 security pins from it and I think it was £10 well spent!
