Mortise Cams, and KIK Tailpieces, and Cut Keys, Oh My!

[1mrchristopher]

Spent a few hours cleaning and organizing in the van today, and decided to put about half of the cut keys (the ones that come with new cylinders) into the brass bucket. I'm not out of room in my stowaway for mortise cylinder cams, though I can see the day coming, and I AM out of room for the basic KIK tailpieces that come with GMS cylinders. Still plenty of room for those that I harvest off Kwikset, Weiser, Schlage, etc. when I'm replacing hardware. The one thing I will not throw away is any screw in good condition. Every single piece of hardware I replace is cannibalized for screws before I throw it away. Already that's saved my butt on a few occasions. About half the time, I think that little black holes open up and swallow dropped screws. Sometimes you find them, sometimes they're just gone.

I'm trying to decide if I just toss the extra tailpieces, or if I stockpile them for a day when they are not so plentiful (I have a very hard time imagining this day). As it is, I'm probably going to start scrapping C keyway KIK cylinders out of new hardware that receives a different cylinder on install. I'm thinking that more than 20 is probably just unnecessary.

I've been organizing the majority of my keys into Plano Stowaway boxes as well. Thus far it is the simplest method I have found to organize them. My go to house/office/storefront/cabinet keys are all in 50 count boxes (which in some cases hold 100 quite nicely) stacked neatly on end in two larger cardboard boxes, a setup which came with the van, and that I adopted.

One day I dream of a Sprinter, or even a 2500 or 3500 with actual cargo units, instead of a sad little Astro with bad paint, and a funky little homemade shelving & bench setup made of plywood and aluminum, but until that time, I'm fairly well pleased with how I'm managing to make this work.

[billdeserthills]

Say I used to have an Astro van, one day i managed to cram soo much inventory inside it that the rear axle bent. After that as much as I tried I could not find a stronger
rear axle, and it kept on bending. I finally bought an old 1/2 ton Dodge cargo van and began loading it up. The rear end on that van burned out twice and was replaced 3 times, by me,
due again to the excessive weight I managed to cram inside. After about 15 years I managed to total it and i bought a new 2012 Nissan NV high top 3500 one-ton van. I haven't been able
to put too much in it yet, but I am trying.

I have noticed folks selling less useful stuff than tailpieces on e-bay, you might give that a try, before you toss away anything.

[Raymond]

I am using one of those old Curtis metal boxes with the slide out drawers to organize my tailpieces and cams. The moveable partitions adapt very well. And yes, I have started throwing away the extra key in knob extra parts. You can only save so many.

Does anyone have a couple of the special two-pronged cams. These are Calroyal105 mortise cams for a panic bar trim. They result in "storeroom" function in use. The cam is applied on the back of the cylinder with one (AdamsRite size prong pointing down and the other one at 90 degrees. This way when you turn the key, one prong unlocks the outside lever. The key will not turn around to the pull-out position. When you turn the key in the opposite direction, the other prong relocks the lever, and the key can come out.

I actually need one to modify to fit a Medeco cylinder ASAP. I will repeat this in the buy-sell area.