The Field Guide to Mortice Locks

[milsbon]

anyone got the above ? ... and is it worth the £80 outlay ? ... or is there another version out there worth considering ? thanks

[pinky]

the info is excellent, the photos are good too, for me it gives too many destructive drill points rather than picking tips and drill points that do not involve killing the lock.

the info on sizes etc is excellent, but for me doesnt cover nearly enough locks, it needs to be covering 4 times what it does.

this is nothing you cannot do for yourself if you stock the locks, and the guide only covers the most common most popular locks that you stock, no new BS3621-2004 locks are covered, nor are many of the older locks you still come across daily.

considering its a laminated file, £80 is better value than what can be bought on ebay, though this guide can be bought on ebay in cd format, but when you print off and laminate you will spend about same.

so in short, excellent info , limited though with not alot of it, but excellent pics and usefull to a novice only.

[nhughz]

By building up your own lock id file you will also gain a better knowledge of the locks by stripping them down, measuring, photographing and picking/decoding them on the bench as opposed to just reading notes and looking at someone else's photoghraphs.

[milsbon]

nice one pinky, could i just ask you how many pages / locks are covered mate,
i dont mean youve got to list each and every lock, just a rough idea how many, thanks again

[pinky]

about 30, but this equates to alot less when you realise that the deadlock and the sash lock are different pics, so this is in effect almost halved. as the keyway and drill point is same for sash and dead lock.

all the info easily sorted yourself, and you learn alot from doing it yourself, far more than can be learnt from any id program.

if you already know your id on the most common locks and your drill points, then its of little commercial use to you, its not these common locks that cause problems, its the older designs and the new 2004 bs locks, which are not covered.

for instance the union bs lock has had 3 different hardplates for keyway id in past 3 years yet only 1 is covered, the old chubb is not covered , yet all very common still on the door.