typical locksmith work

[cledry]

With the alarmlocks, do you have to set up the alarm side of things as well, or is that already set up for you? Do you deal with security alarms a lot?

Are you talking about the delayed egress Alarmlocks? If so we work with an electrician and an fire alarm company. We do the physical installation and keying, the electrician runs wires from the power supply and alarm panel down the wall to the control box. We hook up those wires and test with a closed loop acting as the fire alarm. Then the fire alarm people do the final hookup to their panel.

[cledry]

I'm writing a paper for class concerning the duties of a locksmith and assumptions vs actual tasks. Would anyone mind if I use some pieces from this thread?

I wouldn't mind at all.

[beancurd]

Are you talking about the delayed egress Alarmlocks?

Yes, I did mean them. . I didn't realise you needed 3 people to install a lock! Its opened my eyes a lot, because installing one of the Alarmlocks probably takes a fair amount of planning (getting the right people together to install it at a convenient time).
Thanks for replying, and putting up the photos. They're really interesting to look at.

[cledry]

Are you talking about the delayed egress Alarmlocks?

Yes, I did mean them. . I didn't realise you needed 3 people to install a lock! Its opened my eyes a lot, because installing one of the Alarmlocks probably takes a fair amount of planning (getting the right people together to install it at a convenient time).
Thanks for replying, and putting up the photos. They're really interesting to look at.

Yes, in our state only a licensed fire alarm tech can do the final hook up to the fire control panel. It is a closed loop that when opened allows instant egress without the 15 second delay. You can get away without an electrician if you use a plug in transformer rather than the hard wired transformer, but most of our customers want the hard wired for reliability.

Fortunately our customer coordinates the 3 services. Generally I show up first, the electrician while I am still on site and the alarm tech later in the business day.

[dll932]

Very interesting Cledry!
Thank you for the photos.
As I see it here lockies either specialist to commercial, which very similar everywhere or have little shop and usually sell things.
Not to many people specialise in 24/7 emergency opening. But 90% of them is destructive....
The place I work at is more lei ak shop. We sell a lot of metal stuff, I'm often in the back rearing or repinning locks. So that most of the things we do. Simpler master-keying, repinning lock to work with 1 key, but most of the time selling stuff. We don't do any opening at all.
They come drill the lock in like 30 minutes... ( , I really have no idea what can you drill on the here ubiquitious cheap locks for 30minutes) and then sell you a new lock.
Very few people have the expertise to open non destructively even though most locks are just 5 pin tumblers with some spools, tops.

I used to subcontract for a small lockshop. As such, I could end up doing nearly anything-cars, closers, panic bars, electronic locks, safes, antique stuff, entry (generally non-destructive, occasional drilling). Now I'm an institutional 'smith; that takes out vehicles and safes but leaves nearly everything else.

[lockedin]

Wow, fascinating. Studying to become a locksmith myself I was thinking mostly in terms of residential, but this could open a whole new world of locks.

[cledry]

Wow, fascinating. Studying to become a locksmith myself I was thinking mostly in terms of residential, but this could open a whole new world of locks.

Glad you found it interesting. As you can see the commercial side of things is quite varied depending upon the sort of company you work for or run yourself.

Yesterday for example I had to replace a clutch and combination chamber in a Simplex, replace a mag lock on a pool gate, replace hinges on a glass showcase, and replace a Herculite style lock on a very heavy glass door in a mall. The latter requires removing the door completely and generally we use three men for safety reasons.

You would need to do a lot of residential to make that much money in a day in most markets. My tally was $1245 for the day, of which $230 was parts. Most days I at least do that and we have 3 other men on the road, one who does at least what I do, one who does a little less, and one who does residential and is lucky to do $300 a day but is usually all labor. With the shop running as well with another man, we try to do a minimum of $4000 a day.

I think automotive is a good money maker too, but I think the investment in tools can put some people off, continuously need to be updated. We don't do automotive for example, other than an occasional opening. Residential is the easiest to get into, but probably the least profit. At least where I live most homeowners try and do it themselves. The box box stores sell locks cheaper than you can. If you are in a big city, like NYC you can probably do very well with residential, but out in the suburbs it is tough.

[cledry]

Had a strange one tonight. I got a call from a locksmith in Tampa asking if I could service one of their customers in a town about 50 miles away. I said no problem but it won't be cheap. I called the business and spoke with the manager and he told me there was already a locksmith on site and he had been working for an hour already. I told the manager that I was contracted to come out and work on the lock, and asked who was already on the job. He told me it was a locksmith from the very same company in Tampa that asked me to go and service the lock. He then said that all I was supposed to do is come out and fix the lock and let the other locksmith learn what I was doing.

Upon arriving the other locksmith was nowhere to be seen. The lock was just a Detex and the customer didn't have the cover key, but I have a set of the 20 keys so grabbed #12 and opened the lock. The problem was apparent immediately, the bolt actuator had fallen off. I popped it back in with a bit of Loctite, gave the innards a squirt of lithium, popped the cover on and tested it. Total time 5 minutes. The other locksmith showed up just then and was amazed I had fixed it already. He had told them the lock couldn't be fixed and it would need a new one. He also asked how I had removed the cover. I was surprised to hear he had been a locksmith for 4 years and was struggling with such a basic issue.

The manager of the store told me she wished they didn't have a contract with the other guys as she would rather use us.

[MBI]

Cledry, that one really makes me facepalm. I have to wonder how some of these guys ever stay in business.

[GWiens2001]

Cledry, that one really makes me facepalm. I have to wonder how some of these guys ever stay in business.

That is the problem with a large market. Somebody can do shoddy work for years, and never run out of new customers. They are never forced out of business.

Gordon

[dll932]

Cledry, that one really makes me facepalm. I have to wonder how some of these guys ever stay in business.

That is the problem with a large market. Somebody can do shoddy work for years, and never run out of new customers. They are never forced out of business.

Gordon

And they make it hard for the rest of us-people EXPECT poor service and doubt your word and question your prices.