I was wondering if I have ruined the lock...

[Sin Esperanza]

hullo,

today I tried to pick my house lock for the first time, I have been succesful with several padlocks before, but I now wished to try my hand at our house lock. I picked it succesfully on my first attempt, but in the wrong direction sadly The lock was fine, nothing had happened to the lock, so I made a second attempt, but this time in the correct direction well after a minute or so the lock was picked, but the plug refused to rotate all the way, but I wasn't about to bend my makeshift tension wrench forcing it too hard, so I rotated it back to the vertical position...WELL, after that I decided to put my key in, but to my great surprise, it wouldn't go all the way in!!! and now I seem to have a problem, after putting my pick in the lock to feel around I have realized that the back two pins or so, seem to be jammed! And it seems no matter how much I fiddle with the angle or play with the tension wrench I can't get them to budge...so my question to you, great lockpicking community, is A) what went wrong and how I can avoid it in the future and B) HOW TO FIX THE LOCK BEFORE I AM IN BIG TROUBLE!

any help available on this matter would be greatly appreciated....for anyone who cares to know it is an EZSET lock.

(sorry my post is a little long winded, but it is my first post, and I am just slightly stressed over the matter)

[Chucklz]

Hmm, a very curious problem indeed, although I doubt it is hopeless. First off, relax and think. Did you feel any kind of weird resistance when you turned the lock with your tension tool? Have you tried a bit of lubricant?

My best guess is that you have mangled the springs somehow, and that they are gumming up the works. You probably cannot repair this easily, unless you have another lock to steal springs from. Just for your information, EZ set locks are of quite poor quality, and thus are quite cheap at around 12 dollars US. My suggestion is to go out and buy the same lock. Take the first lock off the door, pick it open if you still can, or Dissasemble it by removing the pin retainers. Then, rekey the new lock to match. To rekey, you take the lock cylinder, insert key, turn to 90 degrees, remove any retaining clip on the back of the plug, insert a bit of half inch dowel, or a marker or something similar into the back of the cylinder, pushing the plug out. Replace/reorder pins so that your new lock is keyed as your old lock. Replace it on the door and your back where you started.

A much better solution would be to suck it up, and buy a lock that will actually provide decent protection for you and your family. A nice Schlage deadbolt probably will set you back around 40 dollars, but it is a far better product.

[Sin Esperanza]

Yeah, changing the lock did cross my mind...but I would like to keep it as a last resort since I would be afraid of botching the job whether it be in the rekeying process, or just installing it, I am not what you would call mechanically inclined As far as weird resistance goes, well I am somewhat lacking in the area of expertise in this area, and I have relatively little experience to contrast this too, especially in the area of house locks. But from what little I DO know, the lock turned relatively easy until the bolt for the door had all but fully retracted, and then it seemed to refuse to continue! After increasing the pressure a bit I decided to call it quits and save my tension wrench the stress. The possibility of mangling the springs had never crossed my mind, I never even knew that was possible! From what I knew is that there was no chance of ruining a lock through picking it, which was one of its attractions to me. My only concern about the mangled spring idea is that these no longer even feel like pins, they more resemble a metal shaft, with no movement at all in either pin, regardless of the force used. Now my understanding in this area is extremely limited, but I would imagine a damaged spring would maintain some of its manuverability, but then again, I could very likely be mistaken since I would have no idea about how a mangled spring would feel. A few other symptons that I had forgotten to put on here (which was actually my original purpose for signing on, I didn't expect a reply so quickly, thanks for the quick reply chucklz) which was that while the key was compeletly useless, the dead bolt could be locked from the inside of the door!

Anything that could be completed in a more clandestine manner would be preferred...as I would prefer to avoid losing the support of my dear mother on the subject of picking locks And on the subject of mangling the springs, do you know what way is best to avoid such a risk Chucklz?

Oh...and an idea on changing the lock if all other options are defeated...I live in a condo complex (well more town houses) and I was wondering if I could get the locks replaced without too much hassle by the managment in the area...

Again any help on the subject would be greatly appreciated, especially on the matter of other methods for accidently destroying or harming a lock...This is an event I would like to avoid in the future

[plot]

in my limited exposure to other people picking locks, i've never heard of anyone ruining a lock like this before. i'd say its an isolated incident... no reason to be scared about breaking locks in the future.

very odd situation indeed... if you called a locksmith or took the lock to a locksmith, i'm sure he could rekey the lock exactly the same as it was before (ie: replace the springs and pins)...

might cost a little money, but having lived in apartments and townhouses before, i'd say it's worth it not having to hassle with the management.

as for home remedies... i dunno, keep trying the key and playing with it... maybe shoot some lube in there or something. not sure.

good luck.

[WhiteHat]

ooo! ooo! I know this one! I think...

it's a deadbolt so... perhaps the spacers have fallen into the keyway after turning greater than 180 degrees. I think that deadbolts that can be locked from the inside without the key have the leaver thingo that you turn separate from the actual locking mechanism.

can you tell us how far you turned it (i.e. in degrees) before it stopped?

[plot]

you know whitehat, it's a townhouse complex, so it's probably master keyed. so a spacer probably did fall..

[Chucklz]

Ahh, are the locks Master Keyed?

Mangling springs is a very very very rare possibillity. If your locks are MK'ed a master pin may have fallen into the keyway, which could describe your symptoms perfectly. An EZ-set lock, with its KW1 keyway would be very succeptible to this kind of happening. Try straightening a fish hook, and see if you can probe along the bottom of the keyway, to see if you find anything blocking along the bottom. If you do find a pin, you can probably remove it, but your key may not work anymore. You can probably play dumb and call the management and say "my key doesnt work anymore" or something similar.

[Sin Esperanza]

hey great news guys...

I took the key and after reading all of your very helpful ideas I probed along the bottom...nothing was there, but I decided that this problem probably was associated with the master key, so I figured that in this case force might be a good option, so I took the key and with all my weight I slammed myself against the door, after 2 or 3 such rammings, the door realized who was master (me if you haven't figured it out ) and submitted to my will! They key was finally forced in and after running it in and out a few times the lock is almost back to its original state, seems a bit more "grating" (for lack of a better word) in its operation than before, but the key turns deadbolt, so halleleujah! Well my deduction is, and you can post if you think this might be right or not, is that one of the middle pins, I think you referred to them as spacers, got jammed in one of the pin columns, and hence the the pins went all stiff on me! Its just a guess, but do you think that now I have found our lock to have this flaw, would it be likely to happen again? And if any of you have suggestions for a good begginers lock, that isn't so cheap that it doesn't work properly that would be nice to know so I can find some sort of house lock to practice on.

Thank you all for your tremendous amount of help, I would have been in the dark without you guys!

[WhiteHat]

...but in answer to your question - I would imagine that all deadlocks in general need to be turned past 180 degrees so there's always the chance of the driver pins or spacers falling into the keyway - see the MIT guide (use the flat side of your pick to push them back up again as you turn if they havn't fallen all the way in)..

Personally, I make a general rule not to pick locks that I may actually need the security of. incase things like that happen...

[WhiteHat]

and as an after thought.. I guess a spacer could be small enough to turn sideways in the pin column itself.... anyone else have thoughts on that?

[plot]

yea, i think it was a spacer. they can be very tiny.. and in a cheap lock like that, it's very foreseeable. not very likely normally.. but foreseeable. only way to tell forsure would be to take the lock apart.


anyways, as for a good practice lock, get a Kwikset deadbolt that you have to use a key on both sides (2 locks to practice on for the price of one! yay!). with this, you can easily remove the pins and leave all but one or two to practice on, then slowly add more pins as you get the exact feel for what the pins should be doing. as an added bonus, you get to see the construction of the lock and the pins -- and maybe you'll see what we are talking about when we say a spacer fell.

of course, a kwikset lock you buy somewhere (goto home depot or lowes, they are about 15$ if that), won't have the spacers we are talking about, becuase they are used for Master Key systems. Read up on master key systems and you'll understand.

[Varjeal]

I'm really glad I don't have much hair to pull out..hehehe..you guys allllll need to visit the terminology dictionary in the top forum. After reading all the posts, here would be my diagnosis without having the lock in my hands.

That "spacer" you all are referring to is actually called a master pin.

Most likely what has happened is that through raking the pins one of the master pins (which is probably an extremely thin one, like maybe .010 or .015 inch thick had wedged itself between the cylinder plug and the shell/bible/housing of the cylinder. This is a common problem with cheap locks that have been master-keyed. I have seen an occasion or two where a .010 master pin has flipped sideways and jammed in the upper portion of the pin stack, causing keys to quit working.

That "grating" feeling probably means you've either got a master pin jammed between the plug and shell, or you've actually bent one of the thin pins.

There is another option...Hehehehe..

The other option is that a spring has collapsed completely, and one of the "ends" of the spring has unspooled and is caught between the plug and housing. This also is a possiblity with cheaper locks that have been master keyed.

I would suggest using Chucklz suggestion and going to the management to get the lock fixed before you get locked out and someone has to drill the cylinder out of the door. This is a situation that needs definite correction. I would also mention that this situation could have occured with use of the key, and is not a "picking" only result.

FYI, that "lever thingo" is called a thumb-turn. The part that contacts the actual bolt of the lock is a "tail-piece" or "cam" depending on the type of lock.

Hope that helps.

[WhiteHat]

wow! 3 cheers for proffessional locksmiths like varjeal!!!

I was born and raised on the MIT guide, which calls them spacers I think...

Master pin...master pin......thumb turn.... must remember jargon...

[Chucklz]

WhiteHat,

Check out this link for a nice dictionary of terms
http://www.gpla.org/list.html

[marso]

ROFL