Wilson Bohannan padlock

[SAM PICK]

A few months back I got my hands on a bunch of old brass locks off Ebay and have slowly been disassembling, cleaning, replacing springs and pins, cutting a key, and making them easily to re-pin by tapping the bible holes for set screws.

My latest project (a Wilson Bohannan padlock) was incredibly easy to pick by pushing two of the four pins up but, the plug always turned very stiff.

I opened a WB padlock today and found all of the top pins were very rounded. This caused a problem when for key/bottom pins bitted for 0-1 because the key and top pin were both close enough to the shear line that the plug would still spin; explaining the stiffness of spinning the plug (and the damaged springs).

Has anybody else taken apart Wilson Bohannan padlocks and seen the rounded top pins like this or is this damage that the lock suffered from being picked countless times by the previous owner?

Does anybody sell a single lock re-pin or re-key kit that will fit into the .110 inch holes, everything I have is for the .125 variety?

I'll eventually try to have some photos for anybody that wants to see what makes them tick.

Close inspection on the plug and the inside of the lock shows no scarring or damage, and all the springs have been over compressed, otherwise damaged and useless.

[Evan]

@SAM PICK:

There have been a few threads here in the non-recent past about WB padlocks...

It requires quite a bit of metalworking skill and appropriately sized brass bar stock to take apart WB padlocks and reassemble them...

Did your lock look as if it had been taken apart before ?

There are a few standard sizes of pins:

.108" diameter for SFIC pins
.115" diameter for most other pins
.135" diameter for Medeco pins

Are you sure that you aren't just misreading the diameter ?

If your lock has been taken apart before, the rounded top pins and the crushed springs could be explained by someone without the proper skills taking the lock apart and both reusing worn pins as well as pushing the brass rod stock too far into the chamber holes to close them...

Servicing a WB padlock that is NOT an SFIC requires many of the same skills that someone repairing/restoring an old lever padlock would need to open the lock case and then re-rivet it when the repairs are completed...

~~ Evan

[SAM PICK]

I have a small milling machine I use for other hobbies (gun-smith) and had no problem disassembling. It was a very old lock and all the tooling marks around the body and over the plugs is consistent with being in its original condition before my dis-assembly.

I measured the hole diameter not the pin size, figuring the hole would remain more consistent on the plug end than suspected 50 + year old pins. With the hole size being .110 more likely .113 for a decent air gap and wiggle room for a .108 pin.

I am not planning on restoring it to stock I am tapping each of the bible holes to take a 3X.5X3 mm set screw to give the same chamber dimensions for the stack.

I could attribute some of the spring damage to crushing from the plug removal but, the end that was against the cylinder over the 0-1 pins was dragged into the mechanism. Considering how easy the lock was to pick before hand and how weak or nonexistent the spring pressure was I would say most of the springs were toast before hand.

Because of the stiff turning plug, I expected to find deep scarring inside the lock body from abnormal wear from being constantly picked (and too far gone to be repaired). I was pleasantly surprised.