Making Keys for Antique Sargent & Co. Door Locks

[jviss]

Greetings,

If this post is inappropriate for this subforum or forum in general, I apologize. I am generally interested in locksport, but have an immediate challenge that's really getting to me!

I just bought a house that was built in 1925. It has a total of 30 (30!) Sargent & Co. door locks. There are two kinds that have lever locks, and these are on the bedrooms, bedroom closets, etc. They all have the number 5324 cast into the inside of the case, with "Sargent" on one outside surface and patent dates June 29, 1881 and Jan 26, 1886 on the other.

These are single lever locks, so quite trivial; still, a proper key is required to operate them. In addition there are wards cast into the cover of the case.

To my great surprise these locks or keyed differently! Of four I have opened and examined so far I have found three different wardings and four different levers. For the levers I measure from the bottom surface, the surface that contacts the bit, to the beginning of the opening of the gate. There are pairs that may be within the tolerance for the gate, so maybe only two different gates so far, but these are different enough to represent at least two different bittings.

Here are a couple of levers that may perform as "same," on measures 0.269", the other 0.280".




The warding is encoded into the inside of the cover by a number of dots: I have 3 so far, 3 dots, five dots, and 6 dots, and these correspond to the radial position of the wards.



So, where am I going with this? I have no keys. I'd like to be able to lock some of these doors, and leave keys inside the bedroom doors as privacy latches.

I can't find blanks listed as for this lock, anywhere! No surprise, I guess. I have determined the dimensions of the blank I require, assuming I can trim it down to dimension and the cut the wards and bitting, which should be trivial.

My questions:

1. where can I find the proper blanks, if at all?
2. where can I find info on this line of Sargent locks?
3. finally, any and all advice on making keys is sincerely appreciated!

Thanks,

jv

[billdeserthills]

Maybe you can find keys on Ebay
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... s&_sacat=0

[jviss]

Thank you very much for your reply, Bill. I apologize, I should have mentioned that I have been scouring eBay and the web, in general, for suitable blanks. I determined what I think are the required dimensions for the blanks I need, as minimums, generally, so they can be trimmed to fit. I also found a seller on eBay who has 25 blanks listed with the dimensions (villagesalvage); I made a spreadsheet of these so I can easily scan the dimensions against what I think I need. He has a couple that might work for the three types of locks I have, but his single blanks run $8 to $13 each, plus shipping, so I'm being cautious until I know more clearly what I need. Meanwhile a guy had 12 identical steel blanks made by Yale that look like they may be the right dimensions and I snagged them all for $16 inclusive of shipping, so only $1.34 each. I am hopeful. As you know from my original post I will need a few different keys, especially if I want to enforce the warding, the differs between locks.

I will report back on progress. I'm tempted to go around the house and pull all the locks and record the lever/gate dimension and warding for each. Since I can put the lids with the warding and the levers together as I please I have some flexibility.

This is and OCD nightmare or paradise, depending on your view!

In addition, I would like to improve the security while preserving the appearance of at least one door, a storage room, so I'm looking into some mortise lever locks that seem to only be available in the U.K., and checking dimensions, etc.

Regards,

jv

[billdeserthills]

It's fun that you wish to use locks from the last century to secure your house but there are very valid reasons why homeowners with property to secure use modern-day locking hardware. Chiefly among these reasons is the sad fact that your old locks only have a 1/2" long deadbolt, & a wooden door frame can often be spread more than one half inch, thus easily affording entry with no sign of forcible entry.

My clients with antique hardware install a deadbolt, in order that their property can be better secured

[jviss]

It's fun that you wish to use locks from the last century to secure your house but there are very valid reasons why homeowners with property to secure use modern-day locking hardware. Chiefly among these reasons is the sad fact that your old locks only have a 1/2" long deadbolt, & a wooden door frame can often be spread more than one half inch, thus easily affording entry with no sign of forcible entry.

My clients with antique hardware install a deadbolt, in order that their property can be better secured

I'm not talking about entry doors, I'm talking about interior doors - closets, bedrooms, etc.

I have modern pin-tumbler locks with modern deadbolts on the exterior doors. But, in reality, I sincerely doubt anyone's going to kick down my door or pry it open; there are easier and quieter ways to get into houses. And I have a central alarm system that will alert law enforcement, and good insurance!

An expert crook can easily pick just about any pin tumbler lock out there, so an expert will be able to get in. I don't know how they'd deal with the alarm system.

But, as I said, this is a casual, hobby-oriented, interior door project.

Thanks,

jv

p.s. if I could change from pin tumbler to BS3621 lever locks for the entry doors I would!

[billdeserthills]

I would go through the tumblers you have in those locks & key them all to use the same key. Lever tumblers are generally easy to file enough that they will work with a different depth & as you say the don't need to be high-security anyhow

[jviss]

I would go through the tumblers you have in those locks & key them all to use the same key. Lever tumblers are generally easy to file enough that they will work with a different depth & as you say the don't need to be high-security anyhow

That's no fun, Bill! Ha, ha.

Honestly, though, these tumblers are different enough that they can't be filed into similarity. I'll try to post a pic of the range of them when I'm done with my inventory/assessment.

jv

[Squelchtone]

An expert crook can easily pick just about any pin tumbler lock out there, so an expert will be able to get in. I don't know how they'd deal with the alarm system.

But, as I said, this is a casual, hobby-oriented, interior door project.

Thanks,

jv

p.s. if I could change from pin tumbler to BS3621 lever locks for the entry doors I would!

Do the edges of your deadbolts have any numbers stamped into them? That's the key code.. you could look for already cut keys on ebay as Bill suggested.

[jviss]

Here's an example of the extremes of the levers found in these single lever locks. Both from a Sargent 5324. One measures 0.280" from the bottom to the bottom of the gate opening, the other 0.089".

I found 9 different such dimensions (with some rounding) in 18 different locks. There are 6 different wardings. That's 54 different possible combinations, if I calculate correctly.

[jviss]

From the UK are you? if you can mortise a pocket in your doors, you could install the ERA Fortress 5 Level deadlock as they are Kitemarked. Unless they are uPVC and the door edge isn't wide enough to fit a lever lock.

There are pin tumbler locks that expert crooks cannot easily pick, you can always upgrade your euro cylinders to have more features that keep criminals at bay. I wonder if cylinder snapping and bumping is still a popular criminal past time in your neck of the woods. From everything I have heard or read over the years is that bad guys prefer bypass (sipping a latch) or brute force over the skills that lock picking requires.

Squelchtone

No, I'm not from the U.K. It's just that I appreciate the quality and security of U.K. lever locks. Besides being cool, it would discourage local local pickers - security through obscurity, so to speak.

I concur that "bad guys prefer bypass (sipping a latch) or brute force over the skills that lock picking requires" - but one still must be vigilant, and with cheap and easily available pick guns, I suspect it must happen.

In addition, there's one closet in the house I'd like to make more secure; if only I could find a 5 lever sash lock with a 2 1/2" (64mm) backset!

[Squelchtone]

You could look for your lock and possible blank numbers in this Sargent catalog from 1926 https://archive.org/details/Bryce_201807/page/n5/mode/2up

In the browser, it is page 418, in the paper catalog it is page 274 showing 5234 locks and the No. 911 keys that went with them. Not sure if you can just walk into a locksmith shop and ask for some Sargent No. 911 blanks these days.

*you caught my edit before I changed it after I realized you were from where they bang you-we's on the Pike and get their scratch tickets at the corner packy.

I'm from there too

[Squelchtone]

You may be able to use this ILCO key blank catalog to figure out which keys will fit your locks.

Do you have at least 1 key that you can measure from?

https://www.ilco.us/resource/blob/1289674/0fc5f4e85a71e71b110512551d3b0605/dwn-key-blank-directory---09---bit---barrel-section-7-data.pdf

[jviss]

Do the edges of your deadbolts have any numbers stamped into them? That's the key code.. you could look for already cut keys on ebay as Bill suggested.

There are numbers on the end plates of the locks (I don't know the correct term), which are visible when the lock is installed, but they don't seem to correspond to the key required; for example, there are some pairs of like numbered locks with vastly different levers inside.

Also, search as I might, I haven't been able to find keys of any description, blank or pre-cut, that reference these locks.

Thanks,

jv

[Squelchtone]

Then after you measure and figure out which blank you need, see if you can find it on ebay, or contact this seller to see if they have the blank you need: https://www.ebay.com/itm/255027192819

Hope this helps,
Squelchtone

[jviss]

Wow, squelchtone, thanks so much! I will check these catalogs and figure out what blanks I need!

Cheers!

jv