Old warded single lever dead bolt breakdown

[Olson Burry]

I have been considering lever locks for some time now and thought about buying a British Standard 5 lever or something from the shop but what with crimbo coming I shouldn't really.

There are a couple of painted shut unused dead bolt (mortise?) locks in my flat attached to internal doors that are so ill fitting they stay shut anyway. Also they are mine and I dont mind, so a couple of days ago I cut some spokes off a rusty old bike in the garage.

A while of prodding at one of these with a bent spoke or two revealed no insight, they must be 20+ years old anyway so today I removed one and had a look.

Thought I might as well share.

Here it is straight out of the door. Some of the screws had to be dremeled loose because they were so rusty:



And with the front removed:



Here we see the warding, which makes me think the key might've looked something like this wonderously creative artists impression




The bolt removed and a bit of a clean, revealed a single lever. There is an appropriate nodule on the reverse of the bolt and no "gate" as such so the lever only has to be lifted far enough to clear it. There are no measures to prevent an over-lift apart from the insanely tensile strength of the spring.



The next photo shows how I was just about able to operate the lever with a bent spoke and take a pic at the same time:



The thing that surprised me was the amount of force necessary to lift the lever, without taking it apart I wouldn't have known to push that hard.

I have since found the lever on my other internal door but the force required is similar and creating a tool effective enough to hold with one hand, able to operate from either side, whilst manipulating the bolt will be an experiment. Again it's painted shut so I dont expect i'll bother. Maybe at some point ill get round to making a couple of keys, that would be fun.

My guess is that with a new proper lever lock the force required would be considerably less. Hopefully I'll find or get one soon.

Any advice gratefully received.

All pics taken on a Sony ericsson k800i phone, set to "Document" with no flash.

[weerwolf]

Its not actually a lever lock. What you refer to as a lever is just something that holds the bolt in the closed or open position. The peg on the "lever" locks in a slot on the back of the bolt. The key lifts it enough to clear the peg from the slot.

With 2 small hooks it should be possible to manipulate the lock. One to lift the 'lever' and a second one to throw the bolt.

Hope that makes any sense , I don't really know the English terminology.

[weerwolf]

Its not going to be that easy to make a key for it. But if you need help with it , send me a PM , I'll try to guide you through it.

But before you try making a key , you might want to consider getting the bolt loose. Use a wire brush on a drill or dremel to take the paint off.

BTW: those are really good pics for a cell phone.

[Olson Burry]

Ah thanks weerwolf. Its not a bad camera on the phone, with a steady hand and the right lighting, as long as you dont get too close you can get it to autofocus on the right spot they turn out ok.

I didn't really know what to call it, I've had lever locks on my mind for a while and see the insides it felt like a really simple version of one, makes sense that you wouldn't want the bolt to throw if you shut the door too quickly!

I found it is possible to manipulate with bent bicycle spokes but the spring is very tough.

Making a rudimentary key shouldn't be a problem really anything shaped a bit like an "n" would probably work but it would be need to be strong, the bolt is nice and clean now but i dont think i'll bother thinking any more about it this side of Christmas. I'll let you know if I do though.

All the best.

[mkultra23]

Making the key won't be too hard but will take a lot of filing. The artist impression is good but it looks like it needs to be inverted, the ward cuts will be on the outside on each vertical edge of the bit not on the inside.

[mkultra23]

ooh nevermind I was wrong.

[prag]

It seems the security in this lock is in its wards. Union makes a similar lock (Rim lock) to this in SA but it is mostly used for outside gates etc. Security not that good.

This key should be like a step down with the top of the bit being the widest .
What do you guys think?

[weerwolf]

The key would be like the image he posted , but with a bit more meat on it. The key in the drawing would break very fast.

[mkultra23]

At first glance I thought the warding was flat against the case. Hadn't seen this type of floating ward.

[Engineer]

I've got a couple of hundred old keys like these and a few are broke. The older ones were made for an individual lock and sometimes the maker got it wrong. Either the metal wasn't very good quality, or more likely, they made one section too thin in an effort to make it more difficult for a picker to get a bent wire in there. Eventually the key would break then.

You are lucky to have found two locks like that - I've only once ever came across one and since it was 85 years old and from a front door, the large keyway had allowed rain to get in to such an extent that it was only an empty box of rust. Almost everything inside had rusted completely away.

In films set in Victorian times or before, or in comics you might have read as a kid, those "skeleton keys" or set of lockpicks you would see, were actually a set of bent wires to open locks like the ones you had. Where we have hooks, diamonds and so on, they had wires that would get around a specific type of ward. A set of 12 or so would open most of the ones you were likely to come across. Only the more expensive ones would have wards sufficiently complicated that you would need to make a wire pick specific to that actual lock.

I do actually have a picture somewhere of a genuine set of Victorian wire picks. I was outbid on them on eBay a few years ago!