old union 4 lever padlock

[femurat]

I recently got this nice old UNION padlock.
Unfortunately my phone takes crappy pictures under energy saving lights and there were no sunlight this morning.
The padlock is open and from what I can feel without closing the shackle it has four levers.
I'm going to make a key for it and I may need some advice. Does anybody know the space and depths of this old padlock? I can insert a wire in the curtain and probe the levers heights. I may try to decode it and produce a rough key. Then I could just finish it by impressioning, rather than starting with an uncut blank. I'm going to cut my blank out of steel, so an almost working key would be quite helpful for impressioning...

Thanks

[femurat]

To make a key for this padlock I took some measurements.
Key hole height 11 mm. Key hole width 1.5 mm.
Total padlock thickness 12 mm, wall thickness 1 mm, estimated flag 10 mm.

Then I bent a wire getting an L as tall as the keyhole to probe how much it rotates in the keyhole under each lever. Going from front to bottom I found 5 different "obstacles", and the probe turned respectively 30°, 60°, 30°, 60°, 30°. These are eyeballed angles. These obstacles may be 4 levers and the bolt.

I decided had enough info to start filing an old steak knife. I roughly filed it with a cutoff disk on my dremel and got the shape you see over the paper sheet in the small rectangle. Then I blackened it with a bic lighter, inserted, turned, extracted and filed where I saw a mark. After some time I got what I think is the correct key for this padlock. See it on the green table? Looks like a classic shaped key

I thought I could close the padlock and try if it worked. To my surprise the padlock can't be closed. I got this padlock open and didn't try to close it before making the key because I was afraid I couldn't picked it open again, so I didn't know if it was a working padlock or not. Well, it turns out it's not. The levers may be blocked by rust. The shackle is springy, if I close it it bounces up again, without even catching somewhere inside the padlock. The bolt can be slightly moved with a piece of wire, but pulling it was useless.
I sprayed some unlocking oil in the shackle hole, hoping it'll free the levers. I'll let you know if it works, but I'm afraid it will not be possible to fix this padlock.
Well it was a nice rainy sunday anyway.

Cheers

[femurat]

I really hate to cut locks. It hurts my feelings to ruin a padlock. This time I had to make an exception. I can accept not being able to open a lock, but I can't stand not being able to close one!

I took my dremel and opened a small window on the left side of this padlock. I could confirm my hypothesis: the levers are so rusted it was not possible to move them, even levering a flat screwdriver over the rivet against them had no effect. I sprayed some penetrating oil again and gently move them, while keeping the shackle closed.
After some light attempts I decided to apply more force, so one of the levers moved down a little and the shackle got trapped in its closed position. This told me I was on the right track, so sprayed some oil and moved up and down the levers a few times. Now the lock can be opened and closed with this rude method. The levers stay exactly where I leave them and are still full of rust. I'll try to remove as much rust as I can the next rainy day...

Cheers

[Achyfellow]

Try leaving the padlock in a glass of coke overnight (Or for two days). I don't drink it but having a can in a drawer always helps when removing rust from small pieces

[femurat]

Thanks for the suggestion Achyfellow. I could have done it before cutting the padlock
I'll do it this weekend and let you know the results on monday.

Cheers

[femurat]

So I put this padlock in a mug with coke and let it sit overnight. Then I fished it out with a screwdriver and it's nicer and cleaner, and fortunately the old patina is still there.
The levers unfortunately are still blocked, but now I can open and close the shackle without levering them with the screwdriver. When I open or close the shackle the two higher levers go up and down on their own, allowing me to open and close it without the need of a key.
Looks like there's still some rust in between the levers, I'll let it soak some more and see if those levers will be free to move or not. Now those are still hard to move.

When I'll remove the padlock from the coke mug, what should I do? rinse, dry it with compressed air and then lubricate I guess... I'll keep you updated.

Cheers

[Achyfellow]

Glad it 'worked' (You'll need to leave it some more time tho ).

What I usually do is let it rest until it can move normally and all the dirt is gone, then just rinse it with tap water, dry it thoroughly (Using a hair dryer is fine, but you can leave it in a sealed container with rice if you want/need it to be really dry. If it's not delicate you can also toss it on the oven at low temperature) and lubricate it with whatever you like to apply.

If you are going to leave it for more than a day make sure you stir or move the lock once or twice a day so it stays in contact with fresh coke (Kinda like developing film).

Keep us informed!

[femurat]

Great, I'll change the coke tonight and move it from time to time until it's perfectly restored...

Cheers

[GWiens2001]

So if it is only light rust, do you use Diet Coke? (Coke Light in some countries.)

Gordon

[fgarci03]

So if it is only light rust, do you use Diet Coke? (Coke Light in some countries.)

Gordon

I wonder how the street dealers managed to develop a lighter version of coke?
Is it weaker, or just ends faster?




Now seriously...
Why coke and not wd-40 for example?
I use to let them sit on wd40 and it has worked fine for me.. Maybe I should try coke and see what happens!


@Gordon: Here in Portugal it's Coke Light instead of Diet Coke. So I found that particulary funny

[GWiens2001]

So if it is only light rust, do you use Diet Coke? (Coke Light in some countries.)

Gordon

I wonder how the street dealers managed to develop a lighter version of coke?
Is it weaker, or just ends faster?

They just use more cut. (added ingredients to reduce coke content)

Now seriously...
Why coke and not wd-40 for example?
I use to let them sit on wd40 and it has worked fine for me.. Maybe I should try coke and see what happens!

WD-40 lubricates the lock, allowing some of the rust to be worked off the metal. Coke (or any cola) has carbolic acid (carbonated water), and the acid eats the rust, dissolving it entirely. That has benefits, but also risks. The acid eats the metal, too. Just not as quickly. With an old lock, it might eat that last bit of metal that causes the lock to fail. Don't soak it in Coke longer than needed.

You can try an experiment by soaking a new nail in Coke for a week. Then see how the nail looks after that time.

@Gordon: Here in Portugal it's Coke Light instead of Diet Coke. So I found that particulary funny

Wrote the name of the soda both ways for that reason. That way, people who have not seen it written the other way still know what I am talking about.

Gordon

[fgarci03]

Nice!

Guess wha I'm gonna do next?
Thanks!

[femurat]

Hey guys, I tried wd40 many times before cutting the lock side. Unfortunately it didn't work.
The levers were so corroded that I had to force them with a flat screwdriver just to be able to move them a little. And this happened through the window I cut on the side of the lock after I sprayed the wd40 many times.
I may wash the levers with some degreaser before putting it back into coke. The wd40 may be protecting the levers from the acid action...

I prefer coca cola zero if I have to drink it, but this was the original one.

Cheers