Hi all,
So, you may have recently seen in my locks thread that I have acquired a Rotalok. It's an awesome lock, but I'm having some issues with getting a replacement cylinder.
The one that I bought came with an Abus E60 cylinder. According to BosnianBill, who also picked and gutted one of these, it will take Any Standard 30mm 1/2 Euro Cylinder. Note however that the lock that he shows as an example at that time has been cut down from either a 1/2 or double Euro cylinder, as it has no cam and the extended portion is visible at the bottom where it would connect to the cam portion.
At This point in BosnianBill's video, just after he removes the bottom cover, the existing cylinder is sitting flush inside the lock, and the front is not filed down in any way, but when he removes the cylinder you can see that it has been filed down on the back at the bottom. At This point in the video you can see that Bill takes the Mul-T-Lock (complete with rear protrusion due to the cylinder being cut off) and slots it into the lock with no problem.
Now, let's come to my lock. This is the front of the Euro cylinder (Abus E60) that came in mine:
As you can see, it has been filed down on the front portion of the cylinder. See that silver line in the middle of the brass filing? I thought that was just the old silver finish of the lock, i.e. that the Euro has been filed slightly from both sides but left a small area of the original Euro front unfiled. Actually, upon further examination this appears to be a hardened anti-drill pin which has been partially filed into!
Here's the front from a side-on view:
You can see that the front face has been filed down a bit. This is because the front plate only has a hole for the round part of the Euro, not the bible:
And thus when the lock is fitted together, the round plug part of the E60 Euro squeezes very tightly into the round cutout in the bottom plate, and the filing back of the Euro allows it to fit without the bible pushing it back out of the hole, if that makes any sense. Note that Bill's one did NOT need this (either the chamfering or the filing down of the bible) for some reason, even though his bottom plate looks the same.
Moving on with my lock, here is the back of the existing cylinder:
As you can see, both the bottom has been filed back and not only that but the round actuator part that fits into the cam has been as well. Again, Bill's one had the bottom bit sticking out of the back so I can't imagine this is a problem with all of them for some reason and I'd imagine his Mul-T-Lock didn't have that actuator part filed down (although I can't imagine how the actuator part on his could reach the lock actuator bar at the back of the lock with that bottom part "in the way", but surely if he cut that part off, and the lock was flush before, it would now be way too short with that bottom part cut off? Sadly he never shows this so there's no way to know).
To try and test whether I could fit in another Euro cylinder, I picked up a double Euro cylinder and measured the bible part (I'm not actually sure where the Euro measurements are taken - on the bible or on the round part) of one of the sides as around 30mm. So, I cut it in half and filed back the sticky-out bit where the central screw goes. Here it is next to the original (original Abus on top):
However I found that it stuck a LONG way out from the inner plate inside the lock, whereas the Abus fits fairly flush. I started filing more and more, eventually filing both the back of the Euro bible, the round actuator parts and the front, and even rounding off the edges of the front (as the existing one wouldn't fit into the round cutout in the bottom plate). Here's the back with the bottom part filed down (I hadn't yet filed the actuator part and couldn't figure out why it wouldn't fit):
Here's the original Abus cylinder in the lock, sitting flush. Note that the front had to be filed down in order for it to fit:
Here's mine before I filed the actuator part, clearly sticking out:
Backs next to each other, clear that the actuator part had been ground down on the Abus:
This is when I realised the heights are different on the actuator. On the right is the Abus; on the left is my cut down double Euro:
The bible of the original Abus sylinder measures 29.34mm - clearly 30mm before it had been filed down:
Here's the measurement of the round part, at 33.45mm - again, I dunno what part is actually measured for Euros:
Here's the round part of mine after I'd filed down both ends (before filing off the actuator parts it was around 2mm deeper) - 33.32mm:
And the body at 27.63mm (took a LOT of filing to make this fit):
The front of my new cylinder after I was forced to file down both the bible and the round part edges to fit into the front plate:
Note that even at this stage, the round part was now too narrow to fit into the bottom plate round cutout (now loose and floppy rather than perfectly fitting, as with the Abus), and I never managed to grind down the front enough to allow the cylinder to sit flat rather than at an angle.
And the back:
I did manage to get mine to fit flush into the lock eventually:
And it can be closed:
My main problems are as follows:
1. Why did BosnianBill's lock fit those two cylinders fine - one with minimal filing of the back, and one with a huge sticky-out screw part, and still work? (he may have filed this down off camera though)
2. Why is both the one that came in Bill's lock AND the one that came in mine filed down?
The essance of #2 is that: Surely, surely the company who makes Rotalok (possible Federal? Hard to get any definitive information or manufacturers statistics, as I can't find any official source for this) would not require the purchasers of these locks to manually DIY-adjust each and every cylinder that need fitting into the Rotalock? I feel like I'm missing something here. Surely there's a way to buy a half-euro cylinder already without the cam? They can't possibly expect, say, the HM prison service (a location I've read use these cylinders) to manually cut and grind every cylinder to go in these? There MUST be an offer the shelf solution, SURELY? Is mine just defective? If so, why was Bill's Rotalok supplied with a filed-down Euro, too?
3. This manual filing working well for me because I'm testing this on a cheapie, no-name Euro. But I want to put a Dom Diamant or something similar in here - there's no way I'll be able to manually grind that down as easily, as I'm sure they are made with hardened materials and in any case - I'm no DIY expert, you saw the mess I made with this one. I don't want to wreck and ruin a good £150+ lock cylinder with my hack-handed DIY attempts, if my tools would even be able to cut these down?
4. Can't you get half-Euro cylinders without the cam? It seems strange to me - I've googled quite a bit and all I can find is them with the cam. But this lock is being sold without cylinder (normally) and the actuation method is NOT a standard Euro cam, yet it takes half-Euro cylinders - what do they expect you to do about that?
5. Despite looking at many sources, I've always found conflicting information regarding whether you measure a Euro cylinder from the centre of the middle screw to the outside, or measure the two halves and then count the cam (10mm) seperately. Similar to this I can't figure out whether half-Euros are measured along the bible or along the round plug part. And does that measurement include the cam? I've seen half-Euros being sold as 30/10, for example, which leads me to believe that the cylinder without cam is 30, and then the cam is 10, meaning 40mm overall. However I've also heard that it's measured from the front of the cylinder to half way through the screw, which comes up with a totally different measurement that doesn't fit the ones on the site.
When Bill says you can fit "any 30mm half euro cylinder", does that mean -purchased as- 30/10? Or would it need to be 35mm or 40mm to take into account the extra distance from the screw?
I guess, summerising all the above, my questions are something like:
1. Can you buy a Half-Euro cylinder (or something that will fit in this lock; maybe I don't know the proper name for it) WITHOUT cam - I.e. something off the shelf that will fit into this lock?
2. If no to the above, is there an easier way to modify a cylinder and pop it in the lock? Surely all this grinding and filing shouldn't be necessary?
3. How are half-Euros measured? End to end on the bible? End to end from the front of the round part to the back of the actuator (before the cam)? And how does the cam come into all this?
3A. I guess a better question than (3) is "What size cylinder, as advertised on websites, would fit in this lock"? The link above for example has 30/10, 35,10 and 40/10, and so on.
4. If the cylinder needs to be filed or modified to fit into this lock, how is that possible for high security cylinders e.g. a hardened Abloy Protec, where that kind of grinding would be nearly impossible?
I guess there's something I just don't understand or am totally missing. I'm really hoping that someone here can help me out with this because I just cannot figure out how to get a cylinder to fit this lock.
For reference, the inside measurements for this lock are:
From the case of the inside of the Euro hole, up to the entrance for the Euro cutout in the inner lock plate (the main part you see when you remove the bottom cover):
33mm (wtf?)
Approx height from the bottom of the inside of the Euro hole up to the highest point that the round part of the plug could fit into the bottom plate:
Approx 35mm (Interesting.. Maybe it takes a 35mm cylinder or maybe a 30mm advertised is actually 35mm? But that would still take filling off the inside of the bottom plate, which Bill's original one didn't have? Why doesn't the bottom plate have a Euro cutout shape - there must be a reason for this)
I've just ordered a 30/10, 32/10, 35/10 and 40/10 set of cheapie half euros from eBay to test out, of course it's no good if it turns out loads of cutting and grinding is required and I want to put something high security in there which is much harder to cut.. Plus not wanting to damage a nice cylinder of course... This can't be as hard as it seems... Surely...
A HUGE thank-you to anyone who has read all of this, and a MASSIVE thank you to anyone who can help. Not only have I been unable to figure out how to strip down and clean the lock properly, now I can't even get a bloomin' cylinder to fit in here and it's driving me mad! I'd love to upgrade this but at this rate it's going to end up stuck with this Abus for the rest of its days. Please help! Thank you!
. 
