Putting schlage core into wafer assembly?

[Schuyler]

Well,

I've been asked to rekey the house of a friend, no big deal, rekey a couple of doors and I'm done. BUT he wants me to key his garage door lock to his house key. I haven't seen it, yet, but to my knowledge most garage locks are wafer assemblies, and he has confirmed this to some degree (describing it to the best of his ability)

Anyway, think I've got any shot at making this work? Honestly, I know him from my company's production shop, so we might just end up fabricating some sort of solution to this, but with what limited information I've been able to provide, does anyone have an insight here?

[lunchb0x]

you can get roller door locks with pin tumblers, just like shops have on their front doors at shopping centres, so you will be able to do it without having to fabricate your own lock, but you most likely will have to cut out a larger cylinder hole

[Isakill]

Yeah my neighbor's garage door has mortice cylinders embedded into the doors.. But his garage is larger than most service stations

if it's a smaller garage door with the lock in the T-handle it's most def' a wafer lock. as far as I can ponder on it that will be almost impossible, unless you are a master of fabrication. No need in going into the obvious with you because you know way more than I do about locks.

[David_Parker]

I doubt its a mortise cylinder. Most garage door applications I come across have a tendency to be rim cylinders. And yes, you can find them in a variety of keyways.



-Dave.

[David_Parker]

Oh wait, unless the handle itself contains a wafer lock suck as http://compx.com/products-natmtopaddle.html

Then I would completely wrong. I would suggest a photo of the locking mechanism for us to discuss further retro-fit options and so forth.



-Dave.

[Chucklz]

If the lock is in the T handle, you may have to fit a new rim cylinder lock to make it so that everything operates on one key. Seems alot easier than trying to hack in a pin tumbler cylinder.

[Jryanruch]

T-Handle or L-Handle locks are cheap (less than $15) If you want to replace it, they are often held in pretty simply. You'll need a hacksaw to adjust the length of the spindle on the new lock to match the old.

Or if you want to re-arrange the wafers: remove the lock from the door, drive the roll-pin completely through the spindle to separate it from the back of the T housing, look for a spring loaded retainer holding the cylinder in place. Sometimes you have to drill holes on the sides of the T housing to access the retainer -- or use a curved hook pick to go through the key way from the front and pull the retainer down and slide the cylinder out forwards.

[HeadHunterCEO]

you are either looking at A t handle which would be the end of the story or you are looking at a rim cylinder that operates a bolt on the inside the door.

bring a rim cyl with you because most garage door manufacturers use some cheap chinese cylinders that will not accept your standard sc1 blank.
swap it out

[Shrub]

There are loads of commercial hardware fittings around all of this,

A couple of diy mods that havent been mentioned yet could be,

Remove the wardings of the wafer lock and use the house key in the lock anyway after rekeying the lock,
This could work well or not at all, eitherway there is a possability of a lockout at a future date as soon as you start modding things,

Fit a digital lock and do away with the need for a key,
This means the problem is solved of the keys but cheap digi locks tend to fail with heavy use and they are open to destructive attack a lot more so than a cylinder,

Tell him it cant be done without expence and mess, save yourself a lot of your time and hastle and make him carry 2 keys instead of one (i carry 3 key rings, 1 has over 30 keys on it with the other two having 4 or 5 on them, then theres the car and van keys depending what my ride is on that day, 2 keys is nothing)


As a last suggestion may i say that its a bad idea having one key for all beacuse if one lock is defeated easily it means all of the others will open the same, a lost key will give the finder access to every locked room in the property including the cars etc in the garage,

I get calls to rekey full lock sets all the time as people only want to carry one key but from a security point of view its not the greatest thing you can do especially with the bum key thing so big right now, at least a differant lock with a differant profile would mean the garage would need a differant key profile to be bumped,
Saying that whats on there now is likely somthign that a paper clip can wiggle open,

If you want better advice on door furniture or hardware then we need to know what locking mechs are on the door and what handle oporates it,