day in the life of a locksmith

[shutterstuff]

Went ahead and wrote it: http://asecured.life/resetting-the-la-g ... -firmware/

Thank you! Does something like this work on other brands of locks as well?

Sheldon

[GWiens2001]

Went ahead and wrote it: http://asecured.life/resetting-the-la-g ... -firmware/

Thank you! Does something like this work on other brands of locks as well?

Sheldon

Some. Some use jumpers. Some just don't reset.

Gordon

[Silverado]

Not long ago, an associate discovered that I am a hobby locksmith. That lead to me being contracted to do some things they needed done. A couple weeks ago I replaced 3 deadbolts for them, had to pick one of them because of a misplaced key! I also had to drill a padlock (I tried picking it for a little, but was running short on time) to change the deadbolt. I got him brand new G2 deadbolts, all keyed alike, and my associate is very happy with them.
All of this lead to me getting a "service call" recently to look at an Adams Rite deadlock on an aluminum storefront door. It seemed the latch wouldn't always fully extend and would occasionally fall down if jostled a bit. Looks like there would be a place inside for a couple springs to life the latch bar upwards so it does not fall open on its own weight.

At any rate, I'm ordering a new deadlock to install there, and repinning the schlage mortise cylinders and cutting new keys at the time of installation as well.

Here's to accidentally starting a business!

[Tyler J. Thomas]

Good call. There isn't much servicing to Adams Rite style locks aside from spring replacements in the latch style locks and broken/lost set screws. They're dirt cheap work horses and sealed for a reason I suppose. Hell, even at Adams Rite pricing, it's probably the best bang for the buck in the industry. No other lock takes as much abuse and lasts as long at anywhere near that price point.

[Silverado]

Good call. There isn't much servicing to Adams Rite style locks aside from spring replacements in the latch style locks and broken/lost set screws. They're dirt cheap work horses and sealed for a reason I suppose. Hell, even at Adams Rite pricing, it's probably the best bang for the buck in the industry. No other lock takes as much abuse and lasts as long at anywhere near that price point.

I looked, just a little bit, for the springs to just replace those instead of telling them they just need a new assembly. I imagine the springs look similar to a hairpin but couldn't find any places that sell the internal parts. My supplier has whole assemblies though!

[shutterstuff]

Good call. There isn't much servicing to Adams Rite style locks aside from spring replacements in the latch style locks and broken/lost set screws. They're dirt cheap work horses and sealed for a reason I suppose. Hell, even at Adams Rite pricing, it's probably the best bang for the buck in the industry. No other lock takes as much abuse and lasts as long at anywhere near that price point.

At the price for parts, it does not take a lot of inventory dollars or space to keep a decent supply in the van. Customers with those doors are very happy that I do not need to order parts and have it fixed very quickly.

[dll932]

IIRC there are aftermarket replacements for A R stuff these days.

[shutterstuff]

IIRC there are aftermarket replacements for A R stuff these days.

I use USCAN replacement bodies and GMS cylinders.

[billdeserthills]

I had a couple of little jobs today, first was a locked Kwikset Smarty Key powerbolt lock, guy lost his keys and said the pushbutton keypad was dead.
This was a newer generation of the Smart Key lock, I have noticed on the newer ones, kwikset has weakened the face of the cylinder, so if you do try
to use a screwdriver to force the sidebar, instead the face will rotate & break off, which leaves you without anything very solid to turn. I will be drilling
out the sidebar on these, in he future--Before I jam a screwdriver in the keyhole. Funny thing, this client insisted that I replace the keyhole with another
pos Smart Key cylinder, instead of swapping it out with a pin tumbler lock. No problem, I just searched through the junkbox till I came up with a working
smart key deadbolt cylinder and re-coded it to a new key. I can't guess why he said the keypad was dead, it worked fine when I got done installing the new
(used) parts.

My second job was a utility room door that refused to open, when I got onsite I discovered the contractor had already removed all the hinge-pins in his weak & puny
effort to open the door without my help--Of course the hinge pins refused to go back in, because the house had settled, which was binding on the hinges. I looked
through the small gap about 1/8" and determined that the deadlatch needed a little push, in order for it to fall into the strike hole, which allowed me to retract
the latch with my hook tool--Of course I refused to open the door more than 1/2" without the hinge pins, as I didn't want an 8 foot high steel door to fall on me.
The owner wanted the door open, so as soon as he agreed to pay me to put the hinge pins back in, that's what I did. I had to taper the end of the hinge pins, before
they would go back in, and after all that bs, I was finally ready to see exactly what went wrong. Looks like the contractor decided to save some money and instead
of using a good lock, he went ahead and installed a 'Faultless' imported pos knob, and the last time the door was slammed shut, the tip of the deadlatch was forced partway
into the strike hole--Apparently the next guy to try opening the door didn't bother pushing in on the door, to remove the pressure on the deadlatch, which stripped-
out the latch retractor. I tried explaining why putting a $15 import lock on a multi-million dollar house was a bad idea to no avail and wound up just replacing the
broken latch with a passage latch.

I finished my day waiting in line behind an old man at the bank, who couldn't understand that it would take 2 weeks to receive his new order of
checks, unless he wanted to pay an extra $20 for express shipping. After the first two bank reps explained it to him, he felt the need to walk back
out to his car and then return, in order to ask the same question again for a third time. This really concerns me, because at 52, it's looking more &
more like I may actually become one of these old farts myself one day

[shutterstuff]

This really concerns me, because at 52, it's looking more &
more like I may actually become one of these old farts myself one day

I saw a Meme on Facebook that said "I think senility is going to be a smooth transition for me". Loved it! I joined the double nickle club a few months back...

I had one of those dream rekeys today on a 10 acre estate for the new owners. 5 doors on the large house and 6 outbuildings (by far not the largest house I have done, 17 doors is my personal record for a rekey of a home). The house had a mixture of Kwikset and Schlage locks, so replaced the KW so the house was all the same SC key. The outbuildings had all KW locks and one a smart key. Had to replace 1 knobset due to being broken. Took my time as I enjoyed listening to the birds and the man made waterfall going into the large man made pond. The out buildings were far enough apart that I should have driven my van around, but I enjoyed walking around too much. Now I am home and don't want to work the rest of the day!

[billdeserthills]

I had a very trying job today, I had quoted doing some work on this home a couple of weeks ago. The job was to replace an old Weiser key in handleset. Thing is their was an inactive door also, which had a dummy Weiser key in handleset also. Somewhere along the way I quoted for installing a push plate and drilling a hole & installing a knob into that. Problem was I thought we were gonna simply ignore the inactive door and just work on the actual front door.
So, here I am with a push plate installed on each side if the one door and I finally get the news that I'm supposed to be making both doors look identical. About this time I realized that the pushplate on the inside was actually not necessary, because there was no scarring or damage on the inside. I wound up pulling off the inner push plate & turning it over and OMG I got so lucky, the hole I had drilled through the pushplate was almost exactly in the center! Only problem was when I turned the pushplate over, the finish was uglyed up. I found a can of brown paint in my van & repainted both push plates, so they matched and wound up installing two Hancock knobs onto the two doors. While I was there I also replaced the 1970's 1/2" throw deadbolt latch with a 1" throw and drilled the strike to accept the extra length. I was so relieved to have managed to pull my almost mess out of the fire!!

[GWiens2001]

Good save, and clever solution, Bill.

Gordon

[billdeserthills]

I had an easy job today, my client had a Pella door with a euro lock that wouldn't latch fully. These are similar to the Hoppe 3 way locks that are equipped with a profile cylinder mounted upside down. To lock these you lift the lever handle (which throws the bolts) then turn the profile lock t-turn (which blocks the bolts from being withdrawn). I like to open the door and then lift the handle (you hafta watch out that there is enough room under the door for the bolt)
then flip the t-turn and generally test the function of the lock first. Then of course, I close the door and figure out where the bolt is not fully latching, which was at the lower strike cup, which is usually full of dirt, which keeps the
lower bolt from throwing out far enough for the mechanism to latch. Trust me, it sounds like more stuff than it is--Many times just clearing the dirt out fixes the whole problem. Very easy money, but I have found that just cleaning these out doesn't fix the actual problem, which is that they need a hole through them for the dirt to exit
I just love my 18vt DeWalt die grinder, it makes me a bunch of money grinding strikes & poking holes into lil' plastic strike boxes.

I have found the replacement of these type locks to be most profitable and easy as well
These locks are almost never profitable to repair,as no replacement parts are available, so you have the choice between replacing the entire lock mechanism(this lock runs along the entire edge of the door, from top to bottom) itself, or replacing the lock mechanism with 2/3rds of the boltwork & using the original lock's top boltwork (costs a bit less $$). The hardest part for me to figure out is why it takes from a week to several months to get ahold of a new lock mechanism. I have noticed the more I pay the faster it arrives--pm me for the lowest cost distributor I have found

[shutterstuff]

What would that cordless die grinder do that my cordless Dremel won't?

[billdeserthills]

What would that cordless die grinder do that my cordless Dremel won't?

I have a cordless dremel type tool too, but it is too slow for me.
I usually charge $9.50 to adjust a standard strike plate and I like to make the money fast
the 18vt die grinder uses a 1/4" shank or an 1/8", so I found that I just never use my
dremel (it's a black&decker Wizard) and I haven't for years. I know all the batteries are long dead by now