LSO's and HBOM's

[Engineer]

I NEVER thought I would ever find myself saying this, but the locksmithing business can be a bit boring...

Unless it is a front door, or a car, generally people will not pay for a locksmith; prefering to cut or smash a lock off things when the key has been lost. I recently even came across a £50 soft-sided suitcase thrown away as someone had slashed the side to get their belongings out as they could not get a small lock off the zip on it. Actually I took a look at it and it was a 15mm Tri-Circle padlock. I haven't seen one of those before, so I simply opened up the pin that holds the zip's tag on to the zip and put the little padlock with the two tags still on it for later. That little lock is fun, but I will go into that in another post.

People always want keys cut for very cheap Chinese locks it seems (at least it is here), I'm actually grateful for the odd front door key or mortice lock key now that needs cutting! For some reason people will present you with a block of Chinese brass that sometimes worryingly will seem to be going rusty and ask for a key for it. When I ask them for the cut to try and find a suitable blank for it, they look puzzled and then tell me they haven't got a key for it anymore and that is why they one cutting for it. I suppose that explains the length of chain hanging from it then...

Selling locks here is hard as well at the moment, people see 15mm "brass" Chinese padlocks in the local newsagent for 99p and wonder why a proper size and quality lock costs 10-15 times as much? This brings me on to my boredom and HBOM's and LSO's... I have taken to referring to low-quality locks as "Lock-Shaped Objects" (LSO's). HBOM's are more interesting, but no more secure than LSO's... They are the locks you see that look quite impressive, heavy and substantial at first glance, but inside they are made so cheaply/poorly that they offer almost no security at all. Hence, HBOM's...or "Heavy Blocks Of Metal"! They are frighteners, designed to look serious but have no real guts.

Ahh, the things we will do to relive boredom - Like thinking up insulting names for cheap locks...

[femurat]

Hey Engineer, long time no see... I'm happy to see you here again!

While reading your post I went to urban dictionary and was quite surprised the acronyms you used were not there. When I reached the end I understood why

I know what you mean about the locksmith business. Unfortunately there are many shops that are facing difficult times. Many many others, despite their "high" prices, are still working a lot and sell and install good products. At least here. Hope the situation changes but I'm quite pessimistic: people are cheap and don't understand that sometimes you get what you pay for. Anyway, good luck my friend!

Cheers

[GWiens2001]

Have to admit that am sometimes shocked at the cheap pieces of junk people use for locks. Was walking by a construction site recently, and they were using Harbor Freight locks! Without going into details, these are very susceptible to destructive entry.

Was at the lock/safe shop I haunt and someone brought in a stack if HF locks, and needed keys made. They had no keys, of course, but they did know that the locks were keyed different. The lockies looked at me since they didn't want to do it, and I simply shook my head in disbelief and told them sure -$15 per first key on each lock, with a second key free. (They would need to be impressioned, and with round pins and a plastic shell, good luck with that). They declined, of course. If they had agreed, would have driven to HF and bought new ones and trashed the old ones.

Gordon

[billdeserthills]

I had a guy bring me a flimsy looking copy of a yale Y-1 key last week, I cut a copy, but he said it wouldn't fit his deadbolts. I told him if he would bring one of the locks I would try again and what a piece of junk! Nowhere on his lock was a name stamped, so my guess is some chinese or junkier company was afraid of a patent infringement suit. The latch was a 1/2" deep throw, so it obviously was not made for export to the US, as the insurance companies decided back in 1970 to extend the deadbolt latch to a 1" deep throw as research showed them that a wood door could be spread 1/2" without sign of forcible entry. I explained that to him, but he still wanted more keys. I found a Jet Y-1 keyblank was thin enough to enter the keyway and cut him a couple of copies. He walked off mumbling something to himself about needing to find some new deadbolts.

It really is sad how current prices are rising. I walked around my shop the other day, raising prices on all the older stock hanging on the walls. Just unbelievable how a 4" crummy surface bolt can be worth $10+. I think I paid .95 cents for some of them, when I bought them years ago...