typical locksmith work

[cledry]

I know some of you have an interest in perhaps becoming a locksmith and using your lock picking skills as part of your job. So I uploaded a bunch of photos to Flickr that show basically what I deal with. I don't do automotive and rarely residential, almost everything is commercial. Here's the set that I will add to on a regular basis. The photos are basically required by the people we work for, without photos we don't get paid. So we document almost everything.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/78397778@N06/sets/72157630068187571/with/8708294662/

[LockDocWa]

Commercial Work is where the real money is.
As a percentage, how much of your work relies on your ability to pick something open?

As a NON-commercial locksmith I would say about 20 to 35% of my work is picking.
I do a lot of residential and automotive work.

[cledry]

Commercial Work is where the real money is.
As a percentage, how much of your work relies on your ability to pick something open?

As a NON-commercial locksmith I would say about 20 to 35% of my work is picking.
I do a lot of residential and automotive work.

Hard to say as each person at the company does different things. For example one guy does most of the real estate work and he has to open a couple of properties a day. They are usually very simple to open. My work is generally electronic locks and safes and master key jobs, and some replacing of doors, frames and pivots and associated door hardware.

My days vary. Last week I had one job where I had to open about a dozen locks but I don't always pick them. There are other easier non-destructive methods that I try first. So I would say 5%, if that, requires me to pick a lock.

[cledry]

I am starting to caption the photos.

If you have questions please feel free to ask either here or on Flickr.

[GWiens2001]

Started browsing through the pictures. Quite a variety, Cledry. And photo documentation really is a good idea, not just to get paid, but because this is a litigious society we live in, and we need to cover our backsides.

Thank you for sharing the pictures, Cledry.

Gordon

[cledry]

Started browsing through the pictures. Quite a variety, Cledry. And photo documentation really is a good idea, not just to get paid, but because this is a litigious society we live in, and we need to cover our backsides.

Thank you for sharing the pictures, Cledry.

Gordon

One of our customers sends cabinet locks to be replaced regularly when they break. They always seem to claim each job is a recall and don't feel they should pay. So we document each lock with a photo of the old lock coming off, the new lock going on, Loctite to show we used it, the overall cabinet in relation to the others, a shot of the serial number tag on that cabinet. This adds about 20 minutes to each job which we charge them for. It is a pain but it is part of the game, and they throw at least $100K in work our way in the course of a year.

[jeffmoss26]

Going to look through them now!

[ARF-GEF]

Very interesting Cledry!
Thank you for the photos.
As I see it here lockies either specialist to commercial, which very similar everywhere or have little shop and usually sell things.
Not to many people specialise in 24/7 emergency opening. But 90% of them is destructive....
The place I work at is more lei ak shop. We sell a lot of metal stuff, I'm often in the back rearing or repinning locks. So that most of the things we do. Simpler master-keying, repinning lock to work with 1 key, but most of the time selling stuff. We don't do any opening at all.
They come drill the lock in like 30 minutes... ( , I really have no idea what can you drill on the here ubiquitious cheap locks for 30minutes) and then sell you a new lock.
Very few people have the expertise to open non destructively even though most locks are just 5 pin tumblers with some spools, tops.

[ARF-GEF]

Ok I have a bunch of questions :

What is a "police lock"?
What's defective on the defective best lock?
What is a Falcon Instakey?
What is a (Roton) continuous hinge?

[GWiens2001]

Police lock has a lock, frequently in the middle of the door, which controls bolts thrown in both sides, and sometimes the top and bottom, of the door. This is an example of a police lock

A Falcon Instakey is a neat lock that has glued-together pin stacks and precut keys in series. Using a special key, you can shear away one or more wafers in the stacks, which then makes the old key no longer work, and the next key in the series is used. Here is a PDF from their website on how it works.
Took this picture of one a while back while on a lock safari with my son. The picture at the top of the lock depicts the glued together pin stacks.


The Roton continuous hinge is similar to many continuous hinges in that the hinge is the height of the door instead of several individual hinges. This is much stronger than individual smaller hinges (if installed correctly) and more resistant to destructive entry. The Roton is different in that instead of a bunch of overlapping tubes from each side of the hinge with a pin or rod through it, they are splined, or as they call it, geared. Don't really know how much stronger or weaker or reliable they are compared to other continuous hinges, somebody else will have to chime in on that.

Gordon

[ARF-GEF]

Fantastic! Gordon to the swift rescue as always!
Thank you!

I've been looking for the correct expression on the Police lock!
We call it "band-lock" the Germans call it "armoured bar" and I was under the impression they were called "door bar"s.

The falcon is fascinating too. But can't you just make(or emulate) a key which breaks away all the wafer either one by one or in bunches?
We don't have these stuff here so I found this really interesting too.

Nor the continuous hinges. It sound like a really stable quality long time solution. I like it.

[cledry]

Fantastic! Gordon to the swift rescue as always!
Thank you!

I've been looking for the correct expression on the Police lock!
We call it "band-lock" the Germans call it "armoured bar" and I was under the impression they were called "door bar"s.

The falcon is fascinating too. But can't you just make(or emulate) a key which breaks away all the wafer either one by one or in bunches?
We don't have these stuff here so I found this really interesting too.

Nor the continuous hinges. It sound like a really stable quality long time solution. I like it.

The instakey uses a special key with a slot in the bottom to make the change. They key has to turn to break off a section of pin, so not just any key will work. The slot in the bottom removes the master pin section. They often fail to work properly.

The defective BEST lock is simply a BEST (brand of IC core lock) that failed and had to be replaced.

Gordon correctly answered all your other questions.

[cledry]

Just added a few more from the last 2 days. One is a door replacement. Quite a tricky job as we had to install a 1 3/4" door in a frame designed for a 1 3/8" door.

Another recent job that is a bit unusual is a Guess store had a robbery and the glass in the showcases was smashed. Rather than have a glass company replace the panes in the sliding doors they just discard the showcase and bring in a new one. Our job was to remove the old case and discard it. It weighed at least 500 lbs. Nice cabinet, might keep it and put in our showroom with locks in it.

Last job was removing old gate boxes from aluminium gates and welding in new boxes along with new handles and hinges and gate spring. This was installed at the neighbourhood where Trayvon Martin was killed.

[beancurd]

With the alarmlocks, do you have to set up the alarm side of things as well, or is that already set up for you? Do you deal with security alarms a lot?

[Luissen]

I'm writing a paper for class concerning the duties of a locksmith and assumptions vs actual tasks. Would anyone mind if I use some pieces from this thread?