Australian locks

[Philderbeast]

Hi everybody

I have been lurking for a couple of weeks now and wow some of you have some amazing gear. but I'm interesting in getting my own.

I have a set of picks this set acctully on there way over from the US as i type and they should be here soon, so my next item is to get some locks at a range of difficulty. As in the topic I'm in Australia so I'm not sure if i can get a lot of the locks i have seen posted here, and I haven't seen them in shops so I'm not sure what to get to give me a challenge.

now I'm sure you will all recommend i get some cheap easy locks, yep i have read all that and have a few here waiting on my picks, and some i can open with a pair of paperclips... but as i have a 5 month trip ahead of me with work i was looking for something to take with me to keep me moving on until i can get some more overseas (at least a month in to the trip), anything from relatively easy to extremely hard I wil be happy to have a crack at, as i will have a lot of time to fill so im bound to open them eventually.

thanks in advance.

[unlisted]

You may want to have a look see at this thread: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=44156

And there is countless other threads that may be of interest to you on this site. Welcome, and I also recommend you check out this thread: viewtopic.php?t=10528

Enjoy!

[Philderbeast]

I have had a look through those, quite a few times, my difficulty has been in finding these in stores, so i was wondering if anyone from around here could point me to where i can get them, and/or to any equivalents we have here

[unlisted]

Well, I'm not sure what kind of locks you use "down under" there, but if your looking for some North American locks, here would be a great place if you have paypal. Theres tonnes of members on here who would be willing to sell some for a good price and ship them to you.
(note: if you can wait a day or so, I will be auctioning off quite a few locks, etc for the Locksport Donation drive...)

Local stores for you.. Well, you will have to wait for some other members on this forum (local to you) to reply to this thread.

[Philderbeast]

cheers for the help i will defiantly be having a look at what your putting up but postage might be a killer to get them here.

[Baloopaloop]

If all else fails, ebay =D. I bought most of my collection from ebay because hardware stores can only supply so many moderately good locks. And I live about a half hour away from the nearest locksmith that actually has a ground location instead of a mobile unit.

Luck to you.

[jasonthekey]

im pretty sure that Lockwood is from Australia and they are very decent locks and if your looking for a really difficult challenge you could go for Australia's best the infamous Bilock since your new to this that should take you quite some time to pick

[Philderbeast]

i have heard of lockwood so im sure i will be able to get those. I will look in to some Bilock ones as well thanks

[greyman]

Born and bred, mate I started on Lockwood 5 pin cylinders, standard profile (L9 blank, I think). Get the rim cylinders - you can repin them, add spool pins, etc - you'll get plenty of mileage. When you get better, go for something with a tighter keyway, some of the lockwood 6 pin security cylinders have harder profiles. Can't remember the profile code off hand. Gege is nasty (but it's not Australian).

[lunchb0x]

Born and bred, mate I started on Lockwood 5 pin cylinders, standard profile (L9 blank, I think). Get the rim cylinders - you can repin them, add spool pins, etc - you'll get plenty of mileage. When you get better, go for something with a tighter keyway, some of the lockwood 6 pin security cylinders have harder profiles. Can't remember the profile code off hand. Gege is nasty (but it's not Australian).

Its a silca LW4 for the 5 pin key and LW5 for the 6 pin or also commonly knowns as C4, the Lockwood 530 cylinders would be easier to pull apart and re key becasue there is a metal cap on the top of the cylinder that can easily be removed to get to the pins, with most of there other cylinders like the ones for mortice locks (570 cylinder) or there deadbolts you will need the key to pull the cylinder apart.

I know that where i worked we would have heaps of the 530 cylinders spare from upgrading the locks to something like Bi-Lock but buying one from a locksmith could be expencive because Lockwood like to charge a lot of money for there locks, from memory a year ago in there price cataloge the 530 cylinder was around $40.

[Philderbeast]

I apprecase all the inpout here thanks heaps, gives me lots to look out for.

I managed to find some master locks today and picked up a 140, also have a 1903 and 1901 (not sure on the pinning on these)

as well as a random 5 pin cylinder that has a very tight keyway on it so that should take me a while to SPP, but still looking for more (have to find some more shops that sell locks though.

[Baloopaloop]

I'm not sure about the other masters but I know that the 140 has one lightly serrated pin which is the first one, and the others are tall spool pins. If you get that one open relitively early on in your picking experiance, you are going to go far with spool pins. That's how I learned how to pick them. I also bought an ace hardware lock that had a bunch of spools in it

[LOCKED0UT]

In the Hunter Valley Abus locks seem to be every where. I have a 83/45 that took me a while to open.