Shim

[wyr2hs]

What is shiming a lock and making it 3, or 4, or 5 pins? People talk about this and i have no clue what it means.

[pickersRus]

Shimming a lock is simply using a preformed , thin piece of metal ( coke can , pre-formed shim etc. ) to slide into the gap between the plug and the cylinder. Slide the shim gently into the opening until contact is made with the first pin (this is actually the back pin ) , when contact is made either lift the rearmost pin with a feeler pic or use a blank key blank to lift the pin. While lifting this pin gently press against the shim. When the shearline is reached the shim will advance farther into the lock until striking the next pin. Repeat this process until all pins are lifted to the shear line.

[EvoRed]

Then slide the plug out with a follower closely behind and this will leave all the driver pins and springs in situ, otherwise you will have springs zipping everywhere!

You can then remove pins as necessary or put a new key in the plug and re-pin it...

[wyr2hs]

So this is a means to get the plug out of the rest of the lock? What is the point? Is it what an interchangable lock is?

[pickersRus]

The point is that once the plug is out of the shell (lock) then it can be re-pinned so that another key maybe used. Also another reason the plug might be removed besides re-pinning is for maintenance of the lock.

[Hak]

That's one way of shimming a lock. I believe the other way (for padlocks) is to use a thin piece of metal and slide it between the shackle and the lock body (casing) to slide back the internal locking mechanism (clasp or whatever you wanna call it) and the lock pops open.

[Darek84CJ]

Just something to keep inmind...
The higher quality lock it is, the harder it will be to shim. The tolerences will be much tigher, and you will need an extremely thin peice of metal to shim it with. And then that can lead to easy bending
Practicing on a KwikSet or similar first until you get the hang of it.

[Cman22]

viewtopic.php?t=5046
here is a link to a post where i explained how to shim a lock. While shimming i reccommend that you attach the lokc to a table with a vice. It makes it alot easier. Also you put the shim stock on the back of the lock where the top of the key would normally be.