by Svensontini » 8 Sep 2019 8:18
I work in a 132 year old facility, so we have everything from skeleton keys to Medecos. Most is Corbin Russwin though.
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Usually I can find the key if it's unknown by literally trying them all, but occasionally one eludes me. Over the years they selected key cut profiles and assigned numbers to them, but sometimes they discontinued a profile and assigned another profile to that number after thinking they'd pulled the original out of service, but occasionally they missed one.
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In the past they've just drilled these out as they found them, but it wasn't an emergency and I like a challenge.
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I have been able to pick a couple in the past, but my picking skills still aren't that well developed, and admitedly, I have a short attention span so I don't enjoy it that much (I'm working on that!). To be honest, I didn't even try picking this one, I've just been practicing bumping (for no particular reason other than I'd only done it a couple times at seminars and had not been that successful with it and I saw some posts and videos and it looked easy enough that I got curious and decided to investigate), so I thought I'd give it a go.
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It was the easiest lock to bump I've ran into yet, but I took it apart and I think I know why -> each chamber has a spring, driver, master pin, bottom pin, and ball bearing in it. So, with the master pins in there the number of sheer lines is increased. To top it off, with five ball bearings in it that creates another sheer line - and the ball bearings create an even sheer line, heck, I probably could've put my short hook pick in upside down and lifted up evenly and got it to turn!
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I've ran into the ball bearings before, Corbin and Russwin (they were separate divisions at one time) both used those many decades ago as the keys were made from soft brass and wore quickly, so they put ball bearings in to decrease wear. They did put them in all the chambers originally and then later realized their mistake as it does create a sheer line at a known height, so bypass tools could easily open them, so they stopped doing it from the factory and sent out a bulletin to stop doing that in the field. I've never seen them in all five before at our facility, usually there's only three, possibly four. The building is from the '60s, so I think this cylinder migrated from one of the older buildings. It's an old Russwin that has the front face, a skinny middle and then a round threaded area at the back, and I usually only see those in the oldest buildings.
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With both the master pins and bearings in there increasing the sheer lines, the odds were in my favor (for once!)!
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This was on what we thought was a pipe chase. One of the IT guys was chasing some wiring and wanted into it when I became aware of it. It isn't on our key map or any of our blue prints or floor plans, I couldn't find a working key, and none of our Maintenance guys recalled ever being in it. The IT guy found his wiring, so it wasn't an emergency, but it bugged me...
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Once I got it open I found that it's not a pipe chase! It has one of those retractible accordion type fence things in it that you can roll out to block access, you see them on store fronts and stuff. It doesn't reach any of the other walls, and it's hard to describe the area it's in, but suffice to say it doesn't make any sense where it's at, so there must've been some remodeling that occurred and negated it's purpose.
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And yes, my first thought when I got it to turn and it was the wrong way was "Balls! Wish I had a plug spinner!". It's really hard to lock one up once you got it open, LOL!
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/Steve
