Schlage Rekey

[Church Warden]

I am new here and hoping I can get someone's help/advice. I have been given a task with my church to rekey our facility. After much reading and research, this looks very doable. I have learned that with some regular pins and master pins that I can increase the number of keys that can be used as well a master key. Which will make things a lot easier on our Priest.

We have Schlage locks with I assume C seres keys as there is a "C" stamped on the key. While I have not taken apart the cylinder just yet, I can tell by the key that they are a 5 pin core.

My question is, can this type of system have a Grand Master, Master and Individual Room keys? I tried inserting some pictures but the blog will not let me for some reason. I would be happy to Email them if someone thinks they can help me out here.

[Squelchtone]

Hello,

Please note that majority of this forum is for hobby lock picking, not just locksmithing. That said we do have an area for locksmiths to discuss their every day business and we also have the Ask a Locksmith -Questions from the Public area where the public can come ask a question on a lock they are installing or repairing. I have moved your post from Beginner Hobby Lockpicking to This Old Lock.

To answer your question, yes, Schlage can be made into change keys, masters, and grand masters, but you will require a pin kit with key pins and master pins/wafers a well as keys cut properly to work together in such a hierarchy. Are you the church's facilities guy or just a member of the church who they know is a handy man and got volunteered for the job? Have you taken a lock apart before for rekeying? It is not overly difficult, but everyone has their own learning curve. Like I said, originating the keys or cutting them to code will be your biggest challenge here.

This may be a job for a local locksmith shop, you should get a quote just to see what this sort of thing normally costs in your area.

Squelchtone

[billdeserthills]

Not only that, but You could do a Great-Grand Master key too!
I just love those, cause I get to charge extra for them. I like to put all the most special master keys on differently shaped key blanks. for instance I like to use a Baldwin or Emtek key for the GGM key
and that really seems to impress some guy who has clearly spent hours devising a little key chart, to show which of the 49 different keys are supposed to open which of the 6 doors they have in their
system. Just kidding, I'm sure there were more than 6

[Church Warden]

Thank you for both replies so far and thank you for moving my question to the right area. Sorry about that.

I wish we could hire this out but due to cost, that is not possible. I am the Junior Warden and therefore responsible for all buildings and grounds. I have taken one apart and not trying to hurt anyone here, does not seem all that difficult. I can see where it could get tricky thats for sure. So, I must learn this task on my own and complete the job.

I have read about Great Grand Masters but a three level should work just fine I hope to hear back from someone soon that can email them some pictures and more information on what I need to do here.

Thanks again for responding.

[Zenophryk]

yes, this type of core can have a master keying system like you've described.
you should get yourself a Schlage pinning kit, and a good notebook to keep track of your pinning scheme.

Master keying makes use of a Master pin "wafer" that makes up the difference between the room key and the master key. So say pin 1 on the room key is cut to a 3, and pin 1 on the master key is cut to a 6. When you pin the core you'll put in a #3 key pin in location 1 followed by a #3 master pin. And you want to try and avoid having to use #1 master pins. even though they are available, they are so thin that they can often work their way into the shear line and jam things up.

So you need to come up with a keying scheme. I usually start with a key I want to be the master, then I work out the other keys from that key.
Where you want to have a grand master and master scheme, that usually implies there will be several groups of locks that will be opened by that groups Master, and then a Grand Master for all the locks. So start with the key you want to be grand master and work down from there.
The way I have done that in the past is to select my Grand Master Key. Then designate my Master sub groups. in each sub group I will usually set the first 2 pins the same and use the last 3 as the unique pins. The Master key for that group will use the same 2 first pins, but the Grand Master last 3 pins.

Does any of that make sense? I'm not always the best at describing things.

Something to keep in mind with master keying. Master keyed locks are much easier to pick, due to the fact that you have introduced a lot more sheer line combinations.
Also it is relatively easy for someone with a valid room key, and access to the lock that key goes into, to determine relatively quickly and cheaply through trial and error, what the bitting for the master key is.
So If security is at all a concern, you need to be aware of that.

-Zenophryk

[Squelchtone]

I hope to hear back from someone soon that can email them some pictures and more information on what I need to do here.

.

hmmmm... this isn't really a site to come find a locksmith who will do free consulting for you via email.. If someone wants to send you an email on the side with some basic instructions, then that's their business, or we can all just help you in this thread and everyone can add something to the equation. You mentioned repinning is easy.. and yes, it is, but where will you get all the properly cut keys to work within this system? you cant just get a random Schlage key and say ok, this one will be the master key. The cuts of that key have to pass some rules. I know churches always cry poor, and don't take offense please, I know they all do, but they do have *some* money and sometimes it just pays to spend a couple hundred bucks to repin some locks professionally and call it a day.

To post photos follow instructions here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=60483


Squelchtone

[Pintickler]

As far as repinning a lock being easy, I would not disagree in most cases. But if you had to do it professionally, you would find out soon that there are many different kinds of locks, and many different things that can go wrong in the process of rekeying them. It aint brain surgery but taking one Schlage apart only gives you a narrow view of what we do.

[nick08037]

If you are talking about 3 doors you might be able to pull this off with some setup keys, a pin kit and a file. But there really is some skill and work that goes into creating and implementing a MK system. Start reading what you can find on the internet and I am sure you will get help with some questions along the way here. Good Luck -Nick

[MBI]

The information to do this job is located on the forum in multiple places if you're willing to spend some time and do some looking around and reading.

[peterwn]

I am new here and hoping I can get someone's help/advice. I have been given a task with my church to rekey our facility.

Been there, done that. I set up a system some years ago - had to have two masters because of two different profiles (Yale and Schlage). Then keys cut elsewhere (they were not stamped) started to appear. Had a key stolen - fortunately I had a spare cylinder with 12 or so keys so I put that on one of the exterior doors and jammed up the other exterior cylinders with slivers of wood. We then invested in a MK system with a restricted keyway. Well worth it IMO. We have three levels of keys A - minister, B - church workers/ volunteers, C - hall hirers, and a few other miscellaneous keys.

I suggested that St Peter could do with a masterkey for the pearly gates instead of carrying two keys. That idea did not go down too well.

[GWiens2001]

I would be careful about too many master keys, especially if you have not done much of this before. You can end up with ghost keys. Be careful not to have locks with too thin a master wafer, too.

This can become an issue with pickability of the locks. More master wafers = more ways to pick the lock = easier opening.

Gordon

[dll932]

Whatever you do, don't allow random keys to be used in your system for rekeying or that will break it. The other thing: Access to master keys has to be severely limited (like to you and maybe one or two other people). I used to work for a museum that was on a mastered system. Non-profits tend to have more ego in the mix because they're not meritocracies, so anyone who DIDN"T get a master felt overlooked. Eventually nearly everyone DID have a master...so we may as well have left the doors unlocked at night.

[Squelchtone]

Non-profits tend to have more ego in the mix because they're not meritocracies, so anyone who DIDN"T get a master felt overlooked.

You couldn't have said it any better.

I'm an IT guy by trade and recently was asked to come up with a solution to a church's computer problem. They had 2 old ladies who are part of the volunteers who run the office and their computers are in 2 different rooms on opposite sides of the church. The new version of their software has a server side and a client side installed on the computers. This required them to be networked, where in the past one of the ladies would sneakernet a diskette over to the other computer and merge the data into the database on the master computer. Both older ladies believe they are very important and *need* their own computer and their own office space, even though they both work only part time and never at the same time, which to me means, use the same computer and share an office, but they refuse.

I quoted how much it would be to run a network cable from one computer to the other and install a network switch/hub, and they balked at it and asked why it can't be done via wireless. I explained these old PC towers would need wireless cards as it is not built in, and a router as well. They didn't want to spend money on the wireless equipment either.

I bowed out of that job, told them I could not help and the best thing they can do is use 1 computer and 1 office, but like you said, people's egos get in the way of making rational decisions.

Squelchtone

[Church Warden]

I can not thank each of you enough, each and every post was very helpful and I am very appreciative of your time. While this job is new and I have some to learn, I am currently moving forward with the project thanks to the help of an individual who is more knowledgable in this area than I.

Thanks to everyone's advice, this job will get done!

Faithfully,
Paul

[nick08037]

I can not thank each of you enough, each and every post was very helpful and I am very appreciative of your time. While this job is new and I have some to learn, I am currently moving forward with the project thanks to the help of an individual who is more knowledgable in this area than I.

Thanks to everyone's advice, this job will get done!

Faithfully,
Paul

Hello Paul,
Glad to hear that this is going to work out for you. Please come back and share some news and photos of your project as it proceeds or upon completion. What you can share about your project may help others here in the future.
Best of Luck to you,
-Nick