by Shrub » 14 Dec 2006 10:33
Drill a 2 or 3mm holes and no bigger,
You drill to put a wire in the lever gates so that the lifting of the lever allows the wire to move into the gate, do this on all levers and the lock can be opened,
DOnt drill the stump and dont drill any more than the 3mm to line the levers up, sight isnt nessacary,
To the point of your question, there are amny on ebay but im unsure of the quality,
If your really stuck on the door on an old lock it shouldnt be much of a proble,m as the old locks tend to not meet the BS ratings thusly are easier to pick in most cases,
There are a few people making te drill points cards and to be honest if its one for a 2-3mm drill and the point is on the lever gates theres little point in having a picture of the lock with you anyway, a lock that you havent seen before can usually be id'd over the phone with a collegue or even the drill points worked out on the door with a ruler and pencil,
A torch and maybe a impression key could be helpful items, you know the size of the keyhole and where the botl is, a very good guess should im sure be able to be achieved on where to drill,
If your after the pics of the old locks you could be disopointed by the boks around right now as most of them are off the shelf locks i think from what i hear, most of mine are from taking pics of every lock i come across, i did have a id cd that was copied for me by an old aquaintance but to be honest the photography was below par and some of the pictures sqashed up and this idiot was selling them for £180 lol (in fact i think he still does) they dont have the old locks in and minimal use on the door,
The best way i learnt id was to simply start making my own chart up, as with a lot of others, you get halfway throguh your chart having done your research and end up just knowing the stuff before the paper work is finished,
My advice is to drill for the lever gates useing a 2-3mm template, forget the id cd's/books and make your own with the info you want, in the case of old locks buy them from other lockies or ebay, you need them for practice and maybe spare parts anyway so simply make an id card from them as well, keep goign until you have pretty much at least one of every lock made, I must have hundreds of lever locks by now and have either picked them all repeatedly or used them to make and develop tools on,
Its the best way to learn,