Blog – Seattle's Maple Leaf Locksmith LLC – (206)335-4559

Where to get antique-y woodscrews

You’re here because you have a pretty nice old antique lock, but successive visits by helpful tradesmen or well-meaning husbands clearing a docket of tasks as beer thirty approaches have filled the holes on your lock’s trim with a motley selection of steel screws, lag bolts, nails, etc. These look like so many small and glinting black eyes against the clean Art Deco lines of your period lock and door. You need to find appropriate screws, whether because the building is on the national historic register/legal obligation or just the sake of your sanity.But where will you find these screws which aren’t sold at Home Depot? Read on, my friend, I have numerous sources for you to order them from and guidance on what to get.

Placeholder for a picture of a mortise lock thumblatch with inappropriate fasteners to come in the future

A bronze slotted flat head countersunk woodscrew from Fair Winds Fasteners

In my opinion one should use the longest screw possible to utilize fresh wood. After 100 years the wood tends to get stripped out of a screw hole. Every time somebody reattaches something to the door with those woodscrews they are going to try to tighten that screw and over time that will tear the fibers of the wood out until there’s nothing left in the hole and the screw will fall out when you shut the door with any force. The situation is even worse now that everybody has impact drivers.

Oval head on top and round or button head on bottom. Use the round head for when the hole it will go in is NOT countersunk, a countersunk screw on a hole that isn’t countersunk looks stupid and is weaker.https://fairwindfasteners.com/collections/silicon-bronze-wood-screws/products/silicon-bronze-wood-screws-6

You can figure out the maximum length of screw for your door by taking a very small diameter drill bit and drilling the center of the hole through all of the wood but not through the other side of the door. Stop when you hit the metal of the lock which will be obvious. Now stick a needle or paperclip in the hole to find out how deep it will go. That is the max length of the screw in the wood you can use. You can add the depth of the hardware mounted with the screw on the door’s surface. So for example, if your hole is 3/4″ and the rose or eschutcheon is 1/8″, you would use a 7/8″ screw although a 3/4″ would be a better choice, it’s horrible to bottom out before the thing you’re screwing in is snug on the door. If you only need four screws get both, they’re only $0.50 each or so.

Try to find aged bronze or antique brass or oil rubbed bronze finish to match your old lock’s patina. Bright brass will look weird and then will rust and look weirder.

Here are some links to places to buy these screws…

Fair Winds Fasteners: Make specialty screws for boats. They take their screws very seriously!

House of Antique Hardware: Maybe the best selection of faux antique hardware of reasonable quality. They have a great selection of replacement screws in many different styles and finishes! This is probably the easiest way to deal with your missing screw issues. These screws are solid brass so correct for the period.

Tacoma Screw: My favorite source for fasteners in the world is Tacoma Screw, who have every kind of strange fastener available often in store. They have a helpful staff and a dog friendly store policy. It appears that they don’t have oil rubbed bronze slotted screws but they can order anything you want and know how to find it. They got me countersunk head pop rivets which is the only fastener aside from slotted oil rubbed bronze finish screws I’ve found they don’t have in stock.

Back to the issue of screws falling out of the door. The diameter of the hole in your door hardware limits the diameter of the screw and the depth of the hole is also a limitation. If there is no wood left behind the hole you can either rotate the rose to a new position and drill new pilot holes or you can fix the hole with something. Please don’t widen the hole in your door hardware. Please don’t use superglue on the screw. Please don’t drill a pilot hole into the mortise cassette. Only pain lies ahead if you go this route.

There are many ways to fix the existing hole. You can drill the hole larger and glue a piece of wood into the hole and screw into that, you can use Woodmate’s Mr. Grip to add material to the hole (be careful, the sharp perforated metal will cut your fingers easily), you can jam a lot of toothpicks into the hole or you can fill with plastic wood and redrill the holes. Another cool option is threaded inserts for wood but these will require getting machine screws of the proper finish and is a whole new can of worms. You would have to order countersunk slotted machine screws in the appropriate finish, threadpitch matching the insert, length and diameter. I have had really good results with threaded inserts for wood. For even better holding power look for tee nuts. They are threaded inserts with additional teeth to prevent unwanted rotation after install. For more information about the difference between the two look here.

Threaded Inserts
Tee Nuts

The blessing of IC cores

Sometimes I get called out to rekey a commercial building (less frequently it’s a restaurant, apartment building or house) that has special locks using SFIC cores. They look like little figure eight lock cylinders and sometimes they say BEST, Arrow, or Falcon on them just above where you stick your key. The customer usually looks disappointed when they hear that it will cost more than regular locks to rekey but these locks provide a lot of benefits. Read on to hear about why you should be happy to have these.

IC cores are better than normal locks because:

  • They allow the client to change out the locks themselves immediately without any tools
  • It’s difficult to make unauthorized copies
  • IC cores are a standardized format that work with lots of hardware
  • The keys look different than house keys

IC cores are worse than normal locks because:

  • Without the control key you can’t remove the core easily. Only highly organized people can produce the control key, most don’t even know what the control key is
  • IC cores are admittedly finicky. The keys are difficult to copy accurately
  • The pins are smaller and wear down more easily
  • If people try to pull the door open with the key they can ruin any lock including SFIC locks which are more difficult to fix

IC stands for interchangeable. An important distinction here is that we’re talking about SFIC, the SF standing for small format, which is the most common format by far. This is different than proprietary removable cores manufactured by different companies.

When it’s time to rekey you start thinking about how late you’ll have to stay there until the locksmith can arrive. They’ll probably charge you a lot of money to come out and do this after hours but it has to be done. All of these problems can be sidestepped by the person with a spare set of ic cores ready to go. This person need only get out their control key, remove all of the sfic lock cores with it, and then install the replacement cores with a control key, either the same or a different one. It will take them longer to distribute the new keys to employees than it will to replace the cores in most cases.

Of course after replacing the cores you will be concerned about who has the new keys and whether or not they can make unauthorized copies of the key to give to criminals for an inside job, for example. It would be best if the keys couldn’t be copied and there are restricted keyways available for SFIC but they do cost more. The good news is that most hardware stores aren’t able to effectively copy sfic keys which have lower tolerances than typical pin tumbler keys. Even many locksmiths don’t stock all of the keyways and would usually be unwilling to copy the keys if they are labeled Do Not Duplicate though this isn’t a legal restriction. It is possible that a determined person could get the blanks online and make a duplicate with a lot of careful filing or the use of a cnc or milling machine but now we’re probably talking about less than one tenth of one percent of the population. Most best keys won’t be copied without authorization.

SFIC cores and their housings are versatile, used in cabinet locks, padlocks, deadbolts, knobs and levers among many more. Normally any brand will work with any other brand with limitations. A generic SFIC housing will work with nearly any SFIC core in my experience. If you have commercial hardware you don’t necessarily have to replace your lock to use them either. Commercial hardware usually allows you to use replacement cylinders including SFIC cores.

SFIC cores are usually more difficult to pick and drill than the equivalent hardware. It also takes a lot more work to take an SFIC cylinder apart and reverse engineer the master key used to operate all the locks, which is different than the control key used to remove the cores from the locks. In my experience many locksmiths can’t do this, though I do provide this service.

On to the bad: IC cores require the use of a control key to insert or remove them. This has frequently been lost or was never given to the customer by the last locksmith in the first place because of the expectation that it would be lost anyway or that they want the customer to call them in the future in a form of vendor lock-in. Some locksmiths are reluctant to give this key to the customer because they use the same key for all of their customers out of laziness and should never be done because if the key falls into the wrong hands many other buildings are vulnerable to unauthorized entry. In the event that the control key is missing the cores will need to be drilled out or removed with lockpicks or the control key will have to be derived by carefully measuring the pins in a core that was removed to get the rest of them out.

The same thing that makes these locks more difficult to pick makes them more difficult to copy keys for. The tight tolerances will ensure that only those with well calibrated machines and the right blanks will be able to copy the key. It is sometimes difficult to find anybody with the ability to accurately copy these keys, even many locksmiths don’t do a good job copying them. It’s best to ask for extra keys from whoever sells the originals to you to avoid this problem unless you already found a good locksmith like me.

These locks can wear down if used frequently. If used on the front door of a large building the pins will get worn down and everybody’s key will stop working. They will wear down even faster if people try to pull the door open with their keys. Fortunately SFIC keys usually have small heads meaning there is less material to apply torque to or pull a heavy door open with. People will still surprise you, there are buildings that have me replace the core on the front door a few times a year because of this even after putting signs on the door asking residents not to pull the door open with their keys.

In the end analysis if you have SFIC locks you should make the most of them. Make sure you keep the control key somewhere safe and make a copy of it before you need one. To take full advantage of their benefits have a full set of replacement cores prepared along with all the keys you will need beforehand so that you can deploy the keys and replace the cores at a moment’s notice. At the very least have enough replacement cores for all exterior doors.

Once your crisis is averted, take the old cores to your favorite locksmith and have them rekey the cores to a new key. In this way you’ll be ready for the next time and save money on the locksmith’s trip charge to your location.

This is in contrast to the dumpster fire that it usually is where you realize that you have to stay until 8 pm until the locksmith can arrive, you can’t find the control key so must pay for a new one or for the cores to get drilled out, you’re getting charged afterhours rates, it takes hours and you don’t get home until midnight. Worst case scenario, all you could get was an emergency locksmith who doesn’t know how to deal with SFIC cores and just replaces them all with cheap locks at a premium and then takes your expensive hardware with them.

Don’t be caught in the dumpster fire. If you are one of the people with a control key and want replacement cores for that emergency you know is going to happen someday or just want to change your locks after ten years of employees coming in and out for the sake of prudence let me know. I can sell you a bunch of cores keyed to your current control key or give you a new control key along with new operating keys.

If you don’t have a control key consider having me come out and make one before you need one. I can sell you new cores at that time and it will be cheaper than having me make or rekey cores after hours.

How safe are safes?

It isn’t often that news about safes and safe locks hits the mainstream. Recently it came out that Liberty Safe had provided a factory code to the FBI to open up a gun safe owned by one of the accused in the January 6th imbroglio.; not with a court order but with a search warrant. This is upsetting to people for two reasons, number one they didn’t know that there was any such thing as a factory override code and two because they think the manufacturer shouldn’t give out these codes, much less have a database of these codes.

Here is a photoshopped image attempting to conflate the Liberty Safe override scandal with the Bud Light endorsement of a trans activist and hoping for similar fallout to Budweiser losing huge amounts of money due to boycott.

Here’s possibly an upsetting fact for you: most safe manufacturers have factory installed override codes for their safes. I as a registered safe tech can call many of these manufacturers and for free or a small fee they will give me a factory unlock or reset code! Liberty Safe is not the only one maintaining and giving out codes to authorities with legal requests. It’s actually an industry standard! If you register your safe with the manufacturer they will probably give you such codes as well in your time of need. They have these not for the FBI but primarily for you when you get locked out.

Those of you with privacy concerns, dislike of government overreach, and also maybe those of you with illegal/quasilegal stuff in your safes may be asking yourselves what you can do to actually secure your safe from an evil locksmith or the FBI/ATF/whatever and the factory codes they can get from the safe lock manufacturer.

Following is information that, if you use it, will all be your own responsibility. I accept no responsibility for the consequences of anything you do. The following should be thought of only as a series of thought experiments.

The answer is that first, if your safe lock has these codes you should figure out how to erase them or buy an aftermarket safe lock and install it yourself and don’t register it. Then remove any identifying stickers from the safe keypad. These are used legitimately by people like me to open safes without any drilling. If you do so, it may void warranties and cost you more down the road if you lose the combination or there’s some glitch with an electronic safe lock. Be careful of what lock you get, a cheap one might be vulnerable to software developed that can open many electronic safe locks in minutes by bruteforcing the combination.

Better yet, if you want to be certain that nobody else can get into your safe buy a mechanical safe lock. There will only be one combination that you yourself can change. That of course doesn’t prevent automated safe dialers or people knowledgeable about how to do so from opening your safe. As an aside, mechanical safe locks are much more reliable than electronic ones. Despite lacking lots of the whiz-bang features of the battery powered ones, mechanical safe locks last for decades. Some are still going after a century. That just isn’t going to happen with the slapdash soldering and incomplete seals put over circuitboards in today’s manufacturing world. Something will fail. Even circuitboards made to go into space that are examined for every possible failure still fail sometimes. Lowest common denominator pricing guarantees that the failsafes demanded by the likes of NASA won’t make it to your safe lock which will likely fail in ten years or less depending on wear.

This fiasco has been a long time coming. Safe manufacturers have been playing with fire maintaining databases of key overrides. In the software industry we’ve seen time and again how social manipulation and network intrusion from hackers has yielded entire databases of customer credit card information before. How likely is it that safe manufacturers are using modern best practices to secure these override codes like salting, air gapping the computers with the database, etc? Or one rogue employee dipping his dirty mitts into the private database as seen with Twitter and Dreamhost in the past.

I have the ability to open safes without the override codes so it isn’t the end of the world for me if the safe manufacturers stop maintaining these databases. Of course it would make life harder and the customer would end up paying a lot more for an opening, but reading the fallout from this scandal it seems like there is a high demand for a safe manufacturer that doesn’t maintain a database of override codes. If you’re trying to lock the world out from your safe maybe you should demand that nobody can open the safe but you.

As long as you know about the factory overrides, people should make informed decisions about what they put in their safe based on what methods are available to open the safe.

Safes should just work

I got called out to fix a safe last week. Normally this wouldn’t be newsworthy but this time it was because I was the second safe technician to show up that day. The first one told the customer that they must continue hitting the safe door with a hammer to close it or get it open. They also said that the fix was to buy a new safe even though the problematic one was only a few months old.

The manager on duty told me that my help probably wasn’t necessary, somebody had already come by earlier who instructed them to just hit the safe door with a hammer to both open and close it but when I passed on what the previous tech told the customer, the NSP asked me to check the safe. Turns out the NSP told the last guy to cancel and called me instead, but the last guy came out anyway. I wonder what kind of silliness the last guy committed before?

So I go take a look at the safe and immediately see a small screw wedged into the frame, just where the door should go when closed! Surprise surprise, the safe worked like new without an obstruction.

I don’t know what the moral of the story is, I guess it is that there are people who think they know what they’re doing who actually don’t. It’s experiences like these that make me question what dentists and auto mechanics are telling me. Did I get a good one or a bad one?

New developments in locks and technology

There has been proof of concept attacks to take control of vehicles by getting access to the can bus but this is an interesting sign that the criminal underworld has begun distributing a tool for stealing cars in a way that bypasses the ECU and immobilizer by directly accessing the car’s local network, as it were. Essentially car thieves buy an object that looks like a jbl bluetooth stereo and bust your headlight off and attach the fake bluetooth speaker to the wires going to the headlight. There’s a chip in the device that automatically unlocks the door and starts the car.

More security news: As I mentioned in other posts lockpicking is becoming an actual problem in Seattle. Either the criminals got smarter or they got more desperate. Lockpicks are being recovered at crime scenes and today I came to a house whose owner sweared he had locked his schlage deadbolt before leaving but found his house had been rifled through after returning from his vacation. Normally I assume that people just forgot to lock their doors in this situation but I rekeyed the locks to make the guy feel safe and noticed when I took the deadbolt cylinder apart, there were scratches on the tailpiece. This is a telltale sign of lockpicking since afactory sc1 key won’t touch the tailpiece of an sc1 original cylinder, much less make a straight scratch mark. As a result I can drop the preamble to my sales pitch for high security locks: they are not snake oil in seattle for average homeowners.

Another development is that Napco’s Alarm Lock is no longer offering ANY locks for thick doors. This is going to be a major issue for people who installed a dl2800 on a two and a half inch door a year ago and have a warranty issue. I’m kind of in this boat right now. If you have a thick door chassis for an alarm lock dl2800 call this guy.

Sometimes doors sag because of negligence

There are many reasons for doors not shutting correctly. Loose hinges, frames not connected to anything, pivot hinges wearing out. Today I encountered one that was heretofore alien to me: negligent installation. There were maybe 30 holes on this continuous hinge and the people who installed it only tapped and installed about six or seven screws, and those not very well. As a result of installing about 20% of the screws the door was sagging and the frame was bent. What screws were actually installed had been driven in at a jaunty angle so that the heads were sticking out and would prevent the door from shutting all the way.

When I saw this I told the building superintendent that this was installer negligence and they should call whoever installed it to fix it for free. The building owner came over and told them that it was normal to only install a handful of screws and to prevent this from happening one should put threadlocker on the screws! That’s the biggest load of malarkey I’ve heard in weeks and I listen to NPR every day.

Continuous hinges are an amazing development and they can last for decades, but only if they are installed correctly. I can’t imagine who would half-ass a continuous hinge installation and if they were going to why they wouldn’t screw in the top ten highest hinge screws. Maybe they forgot their ladder?

How to get Yale 1520 exit device to work correctly

This is just what I did, I’m not recommending it because it might void the warranty and fire rating if this is 1520f and lawyers etc etc, you are the captain of your own boat in life. You have to remove any play in the top rod by adding a cotter pin or roll pin in the sliding telescoping portion with a one inch cutout.

Ok I’ve had a real runaround with Yale tech support on this (spent about an hour trying to reach relevant tech support on the phone, apparently phone system was down at Yale that day) and ultimately figured out a solution that works reliably on my own. I don’t know if it is the correct one or not but figured this may save some hair loss and extra wrinkles from forming out there. I’m not one to claim that the manufacturer screwed up design wantonly but if you’re here trying to figure this out no doubt that is one conclusion you’ve entertained!

Like most vertical rod exit devices the rod is pushed up to release the top latch and then also hold the bottom rod up inside the door until the door closes and the top latch trigger is hit, locking the top latch and dropping the bottom rod into a hole on the floor. Normally to make this work correctly you have to eliminate any play in the system. If there is any play in the rods then the small amount of travel gained from pushing an exit device or rotating a lever will not be enough to release the top latch.

Good luck figuring this out if you aren’t used to this kind of hardware.

The Yale 1520 doesn’t come with a lot of instructions, just a kind of exploded view on an 8.5×11″ sheet of paper. The carpenters on this jobsite did the rod prep but I think they did as well as can be expected of anybody. There were some issues with this hardware straight from the factory at Yale. They shipped out “yokes” that weren’t compatible with the Yale 1520, they just didn’t fit. When the site manager called and complained they sent out more of the wrong part, argued and then finally sent out the correct part when shown pictures of it not fitting. The site manager was the one who noticed that in Yale’s tech support pictures the yoke was a different color!

Once the yokes were installed the next huge problem was that the upper vertical rod for some reason has about an inch of play built into it with a roll pin that slides in a 1 inch cutout. I can’t imagine what purpose this serves. You push the exit device, the upper latch is released, and then when you release the exit device the top rod’s inner sleeve falls an inch and the bottom rod drags on the ground.

The solution to this problem is to drill an additional hole in the cutout and put one of the included cotter pins through it and thereby remove the inch of play. The bottom rod will then stay inside the door when the door is open reliably.

Add one of the cotter pins, make sure to fold it over into the cutout so it doesn’t grab anything inside the door during movement.

This system was a nightmare to work with. I also have misgivings about how well the little threaded connection between the yoke and the vertical rods will last if there is any abuse. Locksmiths generally dislike vertical rod exit devices because of these sorts of things but I detest this lock, I may just walk away if I see one of these on a job site again. Yale tech support was extremely unhelpful with this, I lost money on it, the jobsite super probably thinks I’m a clown locksmith and probably also doesn’t like Yale hardware anymore.

Every time any adjustment to rod height has to be made you have to carefully unscrew a 5/64″ screw from the rod. Don’t drop anything into the door or it might fall into the bottom rod assembly and cause it to malfunction! Then you have to screw it back into the rod. This may require three hands to get it started. To do properly you probably want to add the spacers which seem designed to fall into the door. Then you have to reinstall the exterior trim which is no picnic, the tailpiece is connected to a spring so you have to line things up perfectly. Sometimes you get lucky and the tailpiece slides in, other times you have to curse and fidget for twenty minutes. I hate concealed rods but I hate the Yale 1520 more, maybe even more than the knockoffs I’ve installed for people who bought them off of amazon (never again!).

New developments in lock security

For years people have asked me if they need to replace their locks with ones that are more resistant to lockpicking. Until now I have always said that unless it is known that you have things highly desirable to thieves, a standard five pin Schlage deadbolt is probably good enough. Until now except rarely thieves haven’t been using lockpicks or other professional tools for lock bypass and manipulation, but that is changing.

In the past month one of my customers in a troubled building has found a lockpick outside his building’s front door. In a different building’s back door I found a broken lockpick. What this means is that the minimum bar for security has been raised. Now apartment buildings need the same high security cylinders that banks and jewelry stores have been using for decades.

The reason for this is up for debate but my personal theory is that police response times in Seattle are not great and criminals know it. They have more time to break into buildings to steal packages or break into cars before authorities show up. Even if they are caught they know that they won’t be held for long, often getting back out a few days later.

Add into the mix the popular Youtube channel The Lockpicking Lawyer whose videos raise awareness of how easy lockpicking can be and also sells said lockpicks to anybody and it is hard to imagine that this situation wouldn’t have arisen. Along with standard lockpicks, criminals with a little more money can buy Lishi picks (from The Lockpicking Lawyer) which will open more than half the commercial and apartment buildings in Seattle. These tools cost under $100 online and can be purchased by anybody.

The more interesting question is what to do to prevent illicit entry with the proliferation of lock bypass and manipulation tools. The answer is that building owners can no longer rely on inexpensive lock pin tumbler lock cylinders that have been standard for more than 100 years. It’s old technology and with the help of Youtube and the vast knowledge available on the internet criminals have caught up. It is time, at least in Seattle, to upgrade to higher security lock cylinders that are much harder to open without a key.

There are a few features that building owners should be looking for in an upgrade. Pick resistance comes from difficult keyways, sidebars, security pins and other features found in higher security locks. These locks frequently also feature other desirable features like restricted keyways and hardened steel inserts to prevent drilling.

I sell a few different keyways that fit the bill. While budgeting for a new expensive lock system and keys, also consider moving to an audited electronic form of entry. Don’t be cheap with electronic locks though. Many buildings are implementing fob systems that are no longer very secure either. The cheapest fobs that are also the most common are easily cloned at Minutekey kiosks. These systems are also quickly and easily spoofed with off the shelf electronics and tutorials on how to do it are easy to find on Youtube where the lockpicking lawyer helpfully also points out where to buy these tools.

The “Flipper Zero” is a new tool available for less than $200. It can be used to unlock a lot of doors using key fobs. Access control systems can use higher encryption that is more difficult for these tools to crack and also prevents unauthorized duplication of fobs. Iclass cards for example. I don’t do a lot of access control systems because in this state I’m not allowed to run wires.

Rate Increases Coming

Inflation and increasing amount of travel time due to increasing number of drivers and decreasing traffic infrastructure means it is time to raise rates. I realized I was undercharging a lot, 50% less than many of my colleagues. I have now updated pricing to 10% under market rate. I will continue to provide documentation for those who wish to save money by doing things themselves on my website.

Veto Propac zipper separation problem fix

I am a happy owner of my third Veto Propac and still have my last one because it still sort of works but the zipper comes apart which is concerning if you are walking over grass, you might leave a trail of very expensive tools behind you without hearing them fall out!

I took the bag to a local seamstress but after cleaning the zipper with oil she was unable to get it working properly so I thought I might have to ship it in to Veto for zipper replacement. I could probably get them to do it for free because they have a five year warranty but this was my fault stuffing to much stuff in the bag and forcing the zipper closed so it would have been expensive.

Today I needed a grocery backpack for my motorcycle and I saw that bag in the back of the garage and I thought I fix mechanical problems all day, why not fix this one? After realizing the zipper wasn’t forcing the two sides together enough I tried squeezing the back of the zipper together and also the top and bottom together with some pliers. It worked! I squeezed the other side and now I have two Propacs. Now I can have a dedicated one for weekend and afterhours lockouts. I hope this helps somebody out there fix their busted zipper, I know it is a common problem because Veto has a FAQ on their website talking about how to prevent this…but not how to fix it!