I came up with a hierarchical diagram of how it could be done, but I could tell by the questions he was asking his manager was going to have many more questions once the idea was on his desk.
Well I learned a long time ago that intelligent people can generally be lead from the known to the unknown a lot easier with hands-on training aids versus a printed description and to that end I built this master keying display.
It consists of four SFIC cores grand mastered and then mastered into two groups of two, with four different operating keys. The frame was built from 1/2 inch cast acrylic which I chose because it can be worked with standard wood working tools such as a table or chop saw and is east to polish to a glass like finish, it is also reasonably scratch resistant and durable.
A twelve by twelve blank was cut down to four by twelve and eight by twelve, the smaller piece became the base and the larger one was used for the display. The base was drilled and countersunk to accept two number eight socket head cap screws and the bottom of the display board was drilled and tapped to accept those screws.
To mount the SFIC mortise cylinders the face of the display board was drilled out using a one and one sixteenth inch hole saw, this provided me with holes just under the size of the cylinders allowing the ability to sand and polish them out to a nice snug fit without requiring any hardware to secure the cylinders, in addition the holes where drilled slightly to the right allowing for a convenient representative method of securing the operating keys one for each cylinder.
Once the holes where drilled they where sanded out and polished using a home made flapper made out of a short length of copper tubing that was slit to secure the sandpaper for sanding and a denim strip wiped with red rouge for final polishing.
After that was complete seven number 33 holes where drilled and tapped to accept number six socket head cap screws to secure the key chains to the display.
The base was fastened to the display and all the edges where then sanded and polished to a glass like finish.
All in all it came out pretty nice with only one error, that being punching out a chunk of acrylic on the leftmost number 33 chain hole, I was a little too aggressive with the pressure I was applying to the drill press and as the drill approached the bottom of the acrylic it punched through versus drilling through.
The method of operation is very basic, the keys mounted near the top of the display are the grand master and control keys, the keys secured to the left of each cylinder are the operating keys and the keys centered just below the first and second and the third and fourth cylinders are the master for the cylinders just above them. The chains are just long enough to demonstrate the operation or non-operation of each cylinder via each type of key.
Wayne
