day in the life of a locksmith

[shutterstuff]

There is a locksmith in Florida who does some repair work on wooden doors--filling in miss-drilled or unneeded holes is something that shows up on his site every now and then. He uses large wooden plugs and a router template: http://www.gaterslocksmith.com/blog/page/3/, scroll down to the December 1, 2013 entry.

That router template! Very nice Blog, thanks for sharing it.

[Tyler J. Thomas]

This is just me, but if I have that many cores to pin, I just order them combinated (but my supplier set up the system).

Too much added cost. I have to operate within a monthly budget. I make good money but I don't make more than the money saved by pinning up 10-15 an hour.

[jeffmoss26]

There is a locksmith in Florida who does some repair work on wooden doors--filling in miss-drilled or unneeded holes is something that shows up on his site every now and then. He uses large wooden plugs and a router template: http://www.gaterslocksmith.com/blog/page/3/, scroll down to the December 1, 2013 entry.

That router template! Very nice Blog, thanks for sharing it.

Now that is craftsmanship!

[billdeserthills]

There is a locksmith in Florida who does some repair work on wooden doors--filling in miss-drilled or unneeded holes is something that shows up on his site every now and then. He uses large wooden plugs and a router template: http://www.gaterslocksmith.com/blog/page/3/, scroll down to the December 1, 2013 entry.

That router template! Very nice Blog, thanks for sharing it.

Now that is craftsmanship!

I call it a criminal waste of good money. All that door needed was a re-drilling using a template, or a jig and a couple of scar rings

Of course nobody can fill their pockets with gold for doing that minimal amount of work, so it's far better to simply make a big deal

out of putting the door back into it's original 'never drilled' condition and then re-drilling the holes, Right?!??

Hope this guy can sleep at night, while ripping off his clients, I certainly can't

[Tyler J. Thomas]

I call it a criminal waste of good money. All that door needed was a re-drilling using a template, or a jig and a couple of scar rings

Of course nobody can fill their pockets with gold for doing that minimal amount of work, so it's far better to simply make a big deal

out of putting the door back into it's original 'never drilled' condition and then re-drilling the holes, Right?!??

Hope this guy can sleep at night, while ripping off his clients, I certainly can't

Jeff's a good guy. Who knows? He may have suggested that to the clients and they opted for filling the holes. Not everyone likes the appearance of wraps or plates; high-end residential customers don't always go for the "easiest" and "cheapest" methods. It's their money, it's their choice. 'Murica.

Anyways, I've started working part time at a lock shop. They do heavy amounts of automotive so I'm trying to get back up to speed. They use a Futura machine and JMA equipment. I've got years experience on JMA but never the Futura. Lucky for me it is fairly similar to the 3D Pro (in interface at least) so I picked it up fairly quick. They don't have any of Michael Hyde's books so I'm going to have to memorize blanks/models instead of having a reference - horrors. But hey, I love learning new stuff and automotive has always been the one area I needed work on.

Back on campus, I'm still repairing/hanging doors. I've always used a mini-prybar to lift doors into position to re-hang them. Problem is that only lifting one side means the other side still touches the ground and it's at an angle which sometimes means it's a pain to get the hinge to properly seat into the mortise. Finally found a better way to do it: door stops. One at both ends, height can be adjusted by sliding them in and out. And if you set them perpendicular to one another, you can actually balance the door on them (it's still always a good idea to keep a hand on them though).

[shutterstuff]

Friday morning I got a call from a local business that was referred to me. I stop by to see what the problem was and found that another locksmith in town does not know how to work on mortise cassettes. The business wanted a passage set swapped with an entrance set. The handing is different on both doors, so this guy installed them upside down. To open the doors you now have to pull up on the levers. To make it worse, he cross threaded the cylinder on the entrance lock as well as broke off two of the three screws on the escutcheon! According to the manager, it took him 3 hours to do the job wrong. I gave him my bid to fix it and we are waiting for approval (chain store). I may be somewhat new to the business, but it is embarrassing what this other guy does who has been around for over 15 years...

While I am ranting about this guy, a couple months ago I got a call from a B&B. She had just purchased the place and wanted it re-keyed. I stopped by and did my usual walk through with her keyring. One of the room keys opened 3 rooms! The other room keys worked on just the doors they were supposed to. Are you ready for this? His master key was cut to all 9's!!! She now has a proper master key system. She has the TMK and the housekeeper can only get into the guest rooms and the laundry room and not the owners quarters. The guest keys work properly now too. It was not hard to do.

[Robotnik]

The other room keys worked on just the doors they were supposed to. Are you ready for this? His master key was cut to all 9's!!! She now has a proper master key system.

I have a fairly decent collection of cut keys bought at scrap shops & secondhand hardware stores. One of these keys is an emergency key for a local hotel's obsolete system. It's cut to 999898. I get the feeling someone didn't think that system through very well.

[Robotnik]

Back on campus, I'm still repairing/hanging doors. I've always used a mini-prybar to lift doors into position to re-hang them. Problem is that only lifting one side means the other side still touches the ground and it's at an angle which sometimes means it's a pain to get the hinge to properly seat into the mortise. Finally found a better way to do it: door stops. One at both ends, height can be adjusted by sliding them in and out. And if you set them perpendicular to one another, you can actually balance the door on them (it's still always a good idea to keep a hand on them

I've generally used stacks of door shims at each end - with the shims' wedge shape, the stacks can adapt to whatever the clearance between door bottom and floor may be. Pump wedges also work.

[ltdbjd]

I was just looking at the boxes of IC cores in the earlier post, and just about had a panic attack thinking about pinning all those.

Fortunately there's a cure for the IC core blues that doesn't involve pharmaceuticals and/or alcohol. Randy Main of Main's Lock Supply in CA has dedicated his entire business to doing IC core work just for locksmiths. It's a nice set up. Tell him what you want/need, or send him your cores, and he returns them to you with a quick turn around and at a reasonable price. And again, he only does this work for other locksmiths; he doesn't do work for the public. http://Www.iccores.com

[Tyler J. Thomas]

So does William Lynk.

I'll be fine. I'm about halfway through (need to be done by Thursday). I usually key up 5-10 cores a week so I'm fairly quick with them. 5 minutes from start to finish (including capping and engraving). I did 72 last Thursday. I was dizzy for the rest of the day.

[dll932]

The other room keys worked on just the doors they were supposed to. Are you ready for this? His master key was cut to all 9's!!! She now has a proper master key system.

I have a fairly decent collection of cut keys bought at scrap shops & secondhand hardware stores. One of these keys is an emergency key for a local hotel's obsolete system. It's cut to 999898. I get the feeling someone didn't think that system through very well.

A shop I worked for did cases of locks for a house reclamation company, all keyed alike. There were repo'd houses all over the country that worked on a key like that.

[Tyler J. Thomas]

The other room keys worked on just the doors they were supposed to. Are you ready for this? His master key was cut to all 9's!!! She now has a proper master key system.

I have a fairly decent collection of cut keys bought at scrap shops & secondhand hardware stores. One of these keys is an emergency key for a local hotel's obsolete system. It's cut to 999898. I get the feeling someone didn't think that system through very well.

A shop I worked for did cases of locks for a house reclamation company, all keyed alike. There were repo'd houses all over the country that worked on a key like that.

I don't want to reveal too much but that's because of a certain government agency.

[shutterstuff]

A shop I worked for did cases of locks for a house reclamation company, all keyed alike. There were repo'd houses all over the country that worked on a key like that.

I don't want to reveal too much but that's because of a certain government agency.

This is why I constantly remind my friends in the Real Estate business to hand out my cards. I had one house a few months ago that the new owner finally called after they were convinced someone has been in their home several times. They had a deadbolt on the front door that was not installed properly either (deadlatch hole was not 1" deep...).

[billdeserthills]

I had a big house to rekey last week, must have been at least a million dollar home. The owner told me that they were sure someone was getting in the home when they weren't around. After watching his wife attempt to lock a pella/euro style locking system on one of the bedroom doors, I could see how these people were getting in too. I was explaining that the first usual sign of someone living in your house while you are away, was the increased electric bill, and he said "Oh yeah, we noticed the electric bill was going up". Almost every window in the entire house was unlocked and these people never even noticed. They did notice that their once full pantry had been emptied out. I went around with them and showed them how to lock their doors and how to close the windows all the way, before locking them, so they would stay locked...
Sometimes it seems like folks who don't deserve this stuff shouldn't get to keep it

[shutterstuff]

Sometimes it seems like folks who don't deserve this stuff shouldn't get to keep it

It makes you wonder how they were able to earn that much...

I had an older gentleman call me to rekey his new home last year. He had two sets of those french doors and said the locks did not work. He had screwed a short 2x4 to the floor to block the doors. Once I showed him how to lock them properly, he was very happy that he did not have to replace them.