My home made barrel key collection (& how to)

[Lauren]

I really wanted to create some unique looking keys from some unique material, and that's stainless steel. These keys work great with a nice shine that will never rust....truly original.



Wilson Bohannan and Corbin Cabinet Company padlocks.

What's also unique about these keys is the fact that I was able machine a round head with a pre-existing .250 inch off set hole drilled through it. Normally, I have a concentric drilled hole with a round head. This process is shown in earlier pictures. I super-glued a .500 inch carriage bolt in the center of my square headed key. The bevel head of the carriage bolt was machined down to create a flat surface . The diameter of the head was also machined smaller so that the carbide cutter wouldn't make contact. Also, I remove the threaded portion of the carriage bolt, leaving the smooth shaft portion. The combined work piece gets inserted into the larger V-notch groove of my x-y vise under slight compression in order to allow the shaft to rotate. This Super Glue Gel is so strong that I have to burn it off in order to remove the key from the bolt head. Acetone didn't work.

Another thing to keep in perspective is that the .250 inch hole in key head is the same hole used to hold to work piece to the socket handle adapter, which allows me to place it in the drill chuck (shown in earlier pictures).

[dusanp]

From now on I will probably hate people who stuff match heads into these keys in order to make firecrackers. Absolutely breathtaking work - I cannot imagine doing this myself.

[anthrax28]

created manually?

Good work. but I did not leave the house with a weight of

[stratmando]

Lauren, you ever make a Stainless or other lock? Bet you could make a nice one.

[Lauren]

I have made locks before, but I never tried to copy the old stuff.

[Lauren]

Here's an old Yale brass 6-lever padlock that I picked up on Ebay. I received it without a key in the locked position. This design was probably considered high security for its time. In fact, the only way I could possibly make a key for this lock was to carefully grind down the rivets and take everything apart. This may be considered a sin by die hard collectors, because now the lock is now longer original, and should be considered as restored.



After the lock was dismantled, I machined new spacer rivets on my drill press. I recommend that the O.D. of each rivet be slighted larger in the back half of the lock, where it has to be pounded in with a hammer, and the O.D. of top protruding rivets be about .004 inch smaller. It should be noted that the inner diameter of each rivet is much wider in the center, hence the term spacer rivets. The unique flat spacer plate was made from a brass door hinge.



Here's all the parts to this lock. These levers have such good tolerances, there's no way in my opinion that this lock could be picked, shimmed or decoded without taking it apart. The fence has little groves on the side. Usually the levers have these groves on the sides with other brands to give false clicks against pick attack.



Here's a close up with the new rivets all ready in position.



And, here's the lock re-assembled just before the rivets were stamped. Before the rivets were stamped, I machined a key on my drill press and made the key work.



Here's the final product. The lock and key work excellent. A true testimony to any locksmith.



Yale. Hasp stamped 375

[SavhD]

WOW... Beautiful work!!! I bet after a little TLC almost all of these locks are smooth as silk too... They just don't make 'em like they used to!!!

[Lauren]

I prefer to leave the original patina on the locks. It seems to give more credibility to their age. Yet, every collector has different thoughts on this.

[Lauren]

This old lock made by E.T. Fraim is a steel cased, eight lever, called "Armory". I got it on Ebay for only $7.00 without a key. As a side note, watch out for the all too good deals with no returns excepted. I knew there had to be something wrong with this lock for this low price. I shimmed-picked the lock open (I talked about the process in earlier discussions) using my specially made tools.



The hasp had absolutely no spring to it whatsoever. It was clear that the lock had to be repaired. At this point I had no idea if it was due to a broken spring, which is rather common. The hasp had lots of side to side motion between the steel cased shells. After grinding down the rivets and splitting the lock apart, I quickly learned that the hasp scissor spring snapped off the tail of the hasp, but it wasn't broken. The next pictures shows the mechanics of the lock with new machined rivets and the spring back in normal position.



After placing the lock back together and stamping the rivets, I was then able to make a key. I decided to use stainless steel as the material. The lock merely has to be in the open position to do this. The next picture shows the finished product with a closeup of my tools that I used to open the lock.



"Armory" Eight Lever.

[MBI]

You're quite a craftsman. Thanks for taking the time to share these great pictures.

[Lauren]

I got these twin railroad, switch style padlocks off of Ebay yesterday. The seller had them locked together without a key. These fat boys measure about 1 1/8 inch thick and are made of solid brass. I've never seen heart shaped locks with thickness like this. They appear to be pretty old based on the style of hammered iron chain. I wish I knew who the manufacturer was that produced them. There's absolutely no numbers or letters whatsoever stamped on the locks. I quickly machined a brass key blank (about 4.5 hours).



Once the blank was made, I began turning it clockwise inside the lock, checking for ward marks (I just love the ones hidden on the inside face of the lock. The bottom ones are hard enough) . This process is a type of impressioning. There was no ward marks produced, but a well pronounced mark slightly off center of the blade of the key. I've seen this type of mark produced with many Wilson Bohannan padlock keys that I've made before, so I pretty much knew what I was dealing with. Padlocks of this type have a warded plate flush to the locking dog. I merely made a progressively deeper slot cut until the mark disappeared while turning the key. Eventually, the key turned, retracting the locking dog, and snap... the lock opened. It's a great feeling seeing the result of my work.



The key works both locks nicely. Later, I'll dip the key into some antique solution to make it look old.

[Lauren]

This old Eagle 6-Lever padlock reminded me somewhat of the "New Champion" padlock, only this lock has three scissor springs. There's one problem with the Champion version, and that was the single scissor spring in the lock had a tendency of breaking, since both lever arms of the spring are used; one side for springing the hasp open, and the other side to tension the fence back. So, just maybe smaller springs and more of them was a better concept for Eagle.



Once again, the design of this Eagle lock is too difficult for modern day techniques of picking. The lever stack and tolerances are pretty good. Therefore, I decided in advance to take the lock apart in an effort to make a key. The next picture shows a mechanical breakdown.



I later machined new spacer rivets and re-assembled the padlock showing what the mechanics look like when the lock is in the open position (below).



Making a key for this lock was a real challenge for me. First, I had to use cold rolled steel as the material. Brass would be too weak since the wall thickness of the barrel key is so thin. It turns out, making a small key is actually harder than making a big one. There's a lot less space to grind the block to fit the key hole, and the smaller diameter of the key shaft is a lot less forgiving if you want to make a key that looks precise. The next picture shows the lock restored with my homemade barrel key. I decided to polish it, even though it goes against my grain to do so.



Eagle Lock CO. Terryville, CONN. U.S.A.-Code on hasp: 16J0210.

[dls]

nice work i often have to build my own blanks for vaults and safes up to 500mm long, when the customer needs solid keys and a new keypack i simply make them up from scratch from bar stock. i can post some pics if you like of the blanks not the finished cut key for obvious reasons.

[Lauren]

Sure... this is a post about home made keys. I would mind seeing some pics of you machining it out.

[dls]

i dont use any machine to do the job just a small drill to put a hole in the bow and stem of the key the rest is done in silver or stainless steel round and flat bar with silver solder for the joints.i dont make ornate keys for display as they have to be strong reliable and easy to use and last up to twenty years of operation in a vault. i can do a smaller one for here with pics from start to finish.