Wafer locks flying apart

[WilsonTrucking]

Is it common for the plug of a wafer lock to come flying out at you sending the wafers in all directions when attempting to pick/rake? I have so far had two identical wafer locks do this to me. Could this be a design defect with these particular locks or is it a problem inherent with wafer style locks?

[Silverado]

I have seen wafer locks where the cylinder is actually held in by an additional wafer that the KEY cannot reach. Which means under normal use, the key never touches that wafer and the cylinder never comes out; but when you're picking it you could go too deep, you could hit that retaining wafer and pull the whole cylinder out.
It's not a design defect, as it's made that way intentionally...I feel like it's just a huge security flaw, personally.

[GWiens2001]

If they were serious about security, they would use a lock that costs more than a quarter each when bought in bulk.

Gordon

[demux]

I have seen wafer locks where the cylinder is actually held in by an additional wafer that the KEY cannot reach. Which means under normal use, the key never touches that wafer and the cylinder never comes out; but when you're picking it you could go too deep, you could hit that retaining wafer and pull the whole cylinder out.

Many (most?) locks on a particularly popular brand of office furnishings are made this way. You can get keys that are longer than the standard blank designed to reach this retaining wafer in the back, and pull the plug out and install a new one for quick rekeying. Very similar to how the Schlage LFICs work (though of course, not anywhere near the quality).

[Jacob Morgan]

They are made that way so maintenance, or whoever, can rekey office furniture very quickly with a special key and a new core. Steelcase, and now Hon, and maybe others are doing it now. Consumers may think it is more convenient than having to order a new lock or calling out a locksmith to impression a lock with a missing key, and it makes it easy to have one key for all of the furniture assigned to one employee, but that convenience comes at a price. It goes with the trend of putting employees in big open offices and then shuffling them around from team to team such that they have no office door to lock and they change desks every couple of months.

The issue is not that the plug comes out in picking, the big vulnerability is that anyone can order the special key and have a master key to every furniture lock in an office. But since wafer locks are so easy to pick it may not be much of an issue, really.

As Gordon said, wafer locks are cheap but offer mainly symbolic security as it is. It is a bad trend in office furniture, especially file cabinets. Now days file cabinets have Asian pin tumblers that are cream puffs or they are disk tumblers that will not stand up to a paper clip. The old Chicago file cabinet locks will put up a fight and are not likely to yield to a paper clip.

If one wants to secure a file cabinet a locking bar kit and a good padlock are the way to go.

[indigoalpha6]

I miss these:

[Silverado]

As many offices as I've worked in, I've never actually played with the cabinet locks on them. I always tried to ignore them because they weren't mine, and the longer I'd think about it the more likely I'd be to start playing around with them
The wafer locks I saw like this I believe were Master brand, and were on locking trailer hitch pins, hitch release mechanism locks. Which is a horrible idea for devices like that but hey, Master made their money!

[WilsonTrucking]

So when picking a wafer lock, if I just picked the retaining pin and took the core out, that would get me into the lock without worrying about the rest of the wafers? If so, would you tension it the normal way or as your end goal is to remover the core, pull on it instead of turning it?

[Silverado]

It depends on how it's set up. The ones I experienced, it was possible to reach back and move that retaining wafer and just pull out on the core. No tension needed.
I imagine there are some out there that have channels for all the other wafers as well, so that the proper key has to be in to set all the wafers AND activate the retaining wafer. Without knowing exactly how yours works I personally couldn't tell you.
I am sure there's someone with more locksmithing experience here who could tell you by make or model exactly how everything works though.

Or you could go ahead and experiment, which I feel is the most fun option!

[billdeserthills]

If they were serious about security, they would use a lock that costs more than a quarter each when bought in bulk.

Gordon

If they were serious they would use a material that can't be pried open in less time then it takes to use the key

[JSwistak]

The change key for HON will only allow you to remove the core when it is in the unlocked position. If the lock is locked it will not let you unlock it or remove the core. It does not function as a master key. A regular HON key has 5 cuts, the change key has 6.

[WilsonTrucking]

I'm going to have to try the plug removal idea when I get home. I've got a couple of different wafer locks that haven't exploded at me yet, will be interesting to see. Also, does anyone know if the rekeyable Schlage cores are wafer locks or how exactly they are constructed?

[Robotnik]

I'm going to have to try the plug removal idea when I get home. I've got a couple of different wafer locks that haven't exploded at me yet, will be interesting to see. Also, does anyone know if the rekeyable Schlage cores are wafer locks or how exactly they are constructed?

Schlage SecureKey locks aren't wafer locks in the traditional sense. The key interacts with guide pins, each of which interfaces with a corresponding slider. Once the sliders' respective gates are all aligned, a sidebar can depress and the plug can be turned.

Unless you're talking about those old knob locks that take an S20 (I think) key blank. Those are wafer locks.

[Robotnik]

http://www.lockwiki.com/index.php/Schlage_SecureKey

SecureKey page on Lockwiki, including teardown photos.

[WilsonTrucking]

http://www.lockwiki.com/index.php/Schlage_SecureKey

SecureKey page on Lockwiki, including teardown photos.

Thanks. Quite informative. I never even knew anyone other than kwickset that made those.