I have the fever

[Hak]

A tour through the Best factory...that sounds like a fun vacation

[Stevo]

I'll have to think about that. I'm not sure how I'd swing it. I'm not really a locksmith per se, just a guy hacking around.

But my office is on 82nd street and they are just down on 75th. Its about a 5 minute drive.

I found this page on the Best SFIC:
http://www.crypto.com/photos/misc/sfic/
Wow, that's quite a clever system! But how often would even a locksmith have reason to pick one of 'em? It seems like there would almost always be a master or control key available to a legitimate end user. Do landlords or security departments screw up setting them and lock out their master and control keys from time to time?


Anyway, I ordered a Schlage deadbolt off of ebay as my Next Step. I'll let you know how that goes.

[randmguy]

How often would I have to pick one...Every time we build something new and contract out the lock installation to a carpenter...Whenever we purchase new property and are informed that it should be no problem to work it into the master system because it's already got Best locks...When ever someone wears down a lock or a key and just keeps jiggling it to make it work until the pins are so worn that the control key no longer works...Anytime the nice folks in security decide to hire an outside contractor to rekey a building and forget to stipulate in the contract that we need a bitting list for all the keys.

You are right though, with good record keeping and key control there is no reason to pick a lock like that. Unfortunately those two things are in shorter supply than honest politicians. Most institutional locksmiths are either a maintenance man who's willing to try it once and gets stuck with the job or whoever has enough seniority to take the job because it's "EASY". It hasn't been until the last decade that you've seen many institutional locksmiths with any kind of formal training or real locksmithing experience.