"kit bashing story"

[Sinifar]

This is an old story, but still a good one. Medeco started out in the 70's and for all smiths at the time it was pretty much the first high security lock. We all got into it. Some used Medeco's own machine, but like many we used a HPC 1200 at the time. There were basically four levels, but the trade was only concerned with level one, Air. Level two, sky was sort of available, but not generally. Things went along well until Medeco came out with Biaxial.

So when this new product was announced, I took one of the first classes offered. I still have the "key" with the offsets cut on it to identify the offset. and a couple of other goodies which came with the class. My class was offered by HPC thru H. Hoffman in the early 90's.

Being stupid, and that is all I can say, we thought that Biax was going to be offered in our usual level one and two keyways. Medeco had other ideas. There were some level one biax made, but you had better been real quick to get them, It wasn't long before they had a buy in and a new keyway just for the biax program. The major thing besides this was moving the index pin from the back of the pin ( relative to the side bar) to the opposite side of the side bar notching.

My original kits and there are two for you to pin with are K 5001, which is history today.

Now the story. We had lots of Medeco customers. It was a huge hit especially since they keys could not be made by anyone except those with the special machine, and not all smiths even had one which could do so. So in the course of business we were given the job to rekey an apartment near the high crime area. The owner was tired of all the trash using the building who were not tenants, and wanted the place locked up. A perfect job for Medeco locks..... uhuh.

So we made up cylinders for the Schlage D lines, and one for the outside basement garage door operator switch and went over and installed them along with 50 keys for the tenants. Within a month somebody had been making keys and now the owner was getting hot over this problem. New locks, supposedly duplication proof, and now somebody is making keys.... BUT WHO?

We got a working over by the owner and were told to "fix this problem or else.

Back at the shop I was looking at the biax pins sitting there and wondering if I could...... nope off rotation. they would not align with the side bar. How to fix the problem? File off the index pin and make up a fixture to hold the stupid pins and using a small cold chisel swage on a new index pin at the "back" and drop them into the level one cylinders. It worked in the shop, would it work in the field?

I decided not to push my luck and put only three biax pins in the cylinders, and three regular Medeco pins in the rest. Here again I needed to make this not look like something had been done to modify things. I wasn't sure how Medeco would react to my little modifications.

Basically, you had (stnd - stnd - biax - biax - stnd - biax) in the load. The problem was not making it look like the really odd spacing of Biax, so cuts had to be carefully chosen. Now to make up 50 keys and issue then along with the load in of the locks.

It worked. keys were no longer being made for the locks. A year goes by and I am not thinking about this mess any more. Until there was a howl from Medeco.

It seemed some goof was making our keys. Only problem? They had made over a dozen and a half of them and they would not work. WHY? they missed the fact that this was a hybrid cylinder load, and they could not cut nor decode the biax pins. Finally they had the tenant get a "spare key" and had sent the key I had made to Medeco to find out why they could not duplicate the thing.

Long story short, there was nothing Medeco could do except fume. I had figured out how to kit bash regular Medeco and Biaxial. AND it worked.

Today I still use this dodge from time to time and it still gives people fits trying to figure out what I did, Only know if our shop name is stamped on the keys, and this was one of Medeco's requests, then they should not make the keys or even try to. Most today are leery of making any key with our name on it.

The Medeco Biax mess, the Emhart pins mess, and a couple of other fun things we have done over the years has not endeared us to the trade, but know it is one of the reasons we are still here today.

Just one more dodge.

Interchange Cores, small format. (BEST) Most are pinned in A2. Right? At least that is the largest available kit. Now what happens when you also have an A3 and an A4 kit? AND worse I use an A-1 punch to make the keys. You get the idea. IC cores with more than A2 in them and where are the A4 pins anyway? As close as this key needs to be cut, duplicating keys usually does not work and punches are dedicated pretty much to A2. NOW WHAT?

Just another shop special. AND YES there are more down here. If it wasn't for my key records I would go nuts too. AND that is the most important part of being a smith -- keep very good and EXACT records especially when you are working off the standard plan.

Demonic isn't it? Something so simple yet elegant makes for secure master keying systems. It is a shame we have to go to these lengths to keep people from making keys they are not supposed to get duplicates, but you can't stop people from doing what they do. You can only make the job harder, if not impossible to do. That is moving the art forward, at least in my humble opinion.

Sinifar

[Squelchtone]

Awesome stories man, thank you for sharing with us. I really enjoy reading your posts!

Squelchtone

[billdeserthills]

When Medeco started with their Biaxial, I knew I was in trouble right off. Thing was I could not duplicate a key on my Framon #2 for a biaxial lock that actually worked and i'm still not sure I can actually understand exactly what the book was trying to tell me, as I found the whole experience very confusing. One day I found a way to cut those pesky keys. I started out by placing the customer's key in the Framon, setting the cutter rotation and dialing the space & depth adjustments until they lined up perfectly with the key to be copied. Then I switched keys and made the first properly lined up cut onto my blank. Then I would place the client key back into the Framon, and line up everything for my second cut & make that cut. Sounds time consuming, but I found it to be the only way I could guarantee that my biaxial copies would work, everytime.
I think my method would have worked to duplicate Your keys as well Sinifar, as your way was confusing to the folks who like to follow directions properly.

I would think if you really wanna make the competition crazy adding another milling to an off-the shelf Medeco key (or other key) will likely do that also, at least until they finally get their hands on the lock that key does actually fit!

I bought one of the K-5001 kits a couple months ago, it was on e-bay selling for under $50, so I couldn't resist. It was much cheaper than re-ordering all the parts I needed to refill my old biaxial pin kits

[jeffmoss26]

Another interesting story, Sinifar!

[DCT]

Sounds FUN!;)
Thanks for sharing!