Author: Bjørn Madsen

New locks come with factory cut keys and they usually work very smoothly. Simply insert the key into the lock and turn, and voila! The door is unlocked. Unfortunately this is not everybody’s experience. That is because, contrary to popular belief, reproducing keys is an analog process. People think they can make a copy of a copy of a copy and it will work equally well but that is simply not the case.

If you’re reading this chances are you’re standing outside your locked door. Here’s some tips to open the door with your lame key:

1. Jiggle the key around. Physically shake the key around while gently trying to turn it.
2. Pull the key out slightly while at the same time trying to gently turn it.
3. Pull the key out a little bit and then hit it softly with something while gently trying to turn it.
4. If it is a doorknob try using a credit card or gift card to loid the deadlatch.

When the door opens with one of these tricks you’d better call me to rekey the lock or codecut the factory key. Things that will probably not work:

• Don’t pee in the lock.
• Don’t turn your key really really hard until it breaks off in the lock.
• Don’t drill the lock (unless you have some good drill bits and a big battery and a lot of time).

The most common problem by far is that a key is copied by somebody who hasn’t cleaned their machine or hasn’t calibrated the machine in years or both. The result is that the key blank will be placed in the clamp with a bunch of brass shavings underneath it, pushing it up 5-10 thousandths of an inch. This will yield a key that will sort of work if you are used to using bad key copies but will confound people who are used to keys that work properly. The way to make such a key work is to pull the key out slightly as you apply rotational force to the key. The reason this works is that pulling the key out actually lifts the pins up to their proper height because keys are cut at about a 45 degree angle and as you pull the key up the pins are riding up that 45 degree cut. You can even push the key up towards the top of the lock with some degree of success, depending on how tightly the keyway was manufactured.

This same technique will work on a lock that is very old and worn. Over the decades the face of a lock will get worn where the key touches it. The wear will get deeper and deeper as people keep shoving their key into the keyhole. Eventually the wear may reach a point that the key is moving beyond the place it should stop and the pins will begin traveling up the 45 degree incline of the cut they should be sitting at the bottom of. In this scenario the pins would actually be lifted above the shear line. A lock with this much wear may have pins that are worn down too, meaning that the two kinds of wear may actually counteract each other. I have seen these locks in the field though where the key actually has to be pulled out to where it would have stopped if the lock wasn’t worn away there to work properly.

The hypothetical owner of a house may subconsciously learn how to overcome bad key copies and use the same terrible keys for years but then ask their friend to walk their dog during a vacation, instructing them to use their poorly copied key. The friend will attempt to use the key but not knowing the trick, they’ll be locked out. They will call the owner who will instruct them to “jiggle it around a bit” but will be unable to communicate the trick that has been committed to muscle memory and is not even a conscious effort anymore. If that doesn’t work, they’ll call me and I’ll open the door for $75 during the day.

Jiggling keys around (shaking the key while it is inserted in the lock) is also very useful, especially if the key is used in a masterkey system or is a cheap doorknob like a Defiant. Shaking the key around while applying rotational pressure will cause the pins to get caught at the shear line if you’re lucky. If the key is cut properly it will raise pins to the shear line just by inserting the key all the way into the lock.

Another problem that sometimes occurs that is usually in the households of old men with a can of graphite: the pins in the lock will get stuck above the key. The graphite will form a sticky paste that will overcome the power of the springs above the pins. When this happens you stick your key in, the pins rise up above the key cuts, but they do not go all the way down into the cuts of the key. This can be overcome by rapping the lock lightly with a screwdriver handle. Also spraying liquid lubricant in might help. Be careful if you do because graphite makes a terrible mess when it is suspended in a liquid. It will streak down your door and into your carpet, all over your hands and get on your clothing. Don’t use graphite in the first place. Use a PTFE lubricant.

And yet another problem is when a key is cut at the proper depth but the person copying the key doesn’t use the correct part of the key to gauge the lateral distances for the cuts. This most often occurs with Kwikset keys and untrained workers who don’t know that one must gauge the key by the shoulder. Some Kwikset keys have stops at different points on the bottom of the key in relation to the top of the key. A hurried hardware store employee or somebody who just doesn’t care will gauge the keys by the bottom of the key and the cuts will be too far out on the key. This means that the key might still be usable by pulling the key out while trying to turn it.

Of course folks will figure out a way to mess things up and there are many more ways to improperly copy a key including using the wrong blank, using blanks that don’t conform to OEM spec (GMS and Maxtech keys are the worst), etc. The main thing is to try the key before you need to use it. I’ve done more than one lockout where the customer had blithely trusted a key and put it in their secret key hiding spot only to discover in their time of need that the locksmith in the parking lot kiosk hadn’t properly copied the key and it didn’t work.

This bicycle lock did its job. Someone tried to pry it off, or maybe they used a car jack, but it held on. Unfortunately the owner still had to pay me to remove the bicycle lock since the key didn’t work it anymore. If a smaller U lock was used, it would be harder to get a car jack into the lock. Not all bicycle locks are made of the same quality. The Abus bicycle locks are superb and take a longer time even with my angle grinder, though the Bordo locks won’t stand up to bolt cutters or angle grinders and shouldn’t be used for locking a bicycle in a high crime area overnight.

If you need to lock your vehicle up you could do much worse than slicklocks. Canopies are notoriously insecure so this setup might actually be better than the keyed locks usually seen on truck canopies. Even so, had to take a picture of this.

I just got paid $1800 to rekey a building in the University District because their master key was compromised. There are a few lessons to learn from this.

1. exercise appropriate key control. Lock keys up in a really secure location that can’t be accessed by brute strength, and maybe don’t leave master keys on site.
2.  make sure that your locks are installed correctly.
   The thieves in this instance pried the front door away from the frame until the adams rite hookbolt was no longer holding the door shut. Aluminum is a soft metal and can be flexed fairly easily. This wouldn’t have happened if whoever installed this lock had read the instructions first. If they had, the lock would have hooked into the doorframe and would’ve required far more strength to pry open. To prevent this happening on an aluminum and glass door, one of the following should be done:

• Install an astragal that covers the gap so that it can’t be pried
• Install a latch protector with a anti-spreader pin or two. This pin goes into a hole in the door frame and prevents the door from being pried away from the frame
• Install a hookbolt that hooks into the frame

I had to go rekey an apartment unit for a lady whose keys were stolen when I noticed that the front door to her building was missing the deadlatch that came with the lock. The guy who installed it either didn’t have the right backset or took the deadlatch that came with the lock to sell to somebody else. It is really unprofessional to install a lock on an exterior door without a deadlatch because anybody can open the door with a credit card or butter knife. See bypassing of the passage latch below.

I know how keys are commonly stolen. This is because people call me to rekey their house when their keys are stolen. Some people hide their keys in common places like in/under flower pots next to the door, under welcome mats, on top of door frames etc and criminals find the key. Sometimes they’re stolen out of a gym locker or purse in a car. Sometimes people keep a key in a “key safe” that locks onto their door knob. This is commonly done when a house is being sold or renovations are being done and lots of different people need access. The big blue locks that realtors use are pretty secure, but the smaller black and grey masterlock ones are not.

I’ve made thousands of dollars over the past few years rekeying houses that had these key lockers or key safes locked onto a door knob or fence that was removed. Removing these is unfortunately not difficult to do and it can be silent. A $30 pair of boltcutters is all that is necessary to take one of these off in the night and take it somewhere else where it can be mercilessly pounded with a hammer or cut open with an angle grinder. Then the villain will have any keys locked inside and also presumably access to your living quarters!

Now the question is, how long will it take you to notice that the key locker is missing? Probably not long if it is on the front door of the house you are living in, but it might be a while if it is among many other key lockers hanging on a fence outside your building like these. Would you notice if yours alone was missing from this group? No? Somebody just has to get through the outer door by casually following another resident and then they can try the key obtained from one of these in every single door until they find the right one…

What to do to prevent this you may be asking yourself. The easiest of course is not to leave your keys anywhere they could be compromised. The second easiest solution is to get an electronic lock. Then you don’t need to share keys with people, you just give them a code and delete the code when they’re done in your house. If you don’t want to pay for an electronic lock, the next best thing is to install a key locker that bolts on to the wall instead of clipping onto your doorknob.

If you absolutely must have a key outside your residence or other property, you may as well make criminals work for it if they want to steal it. Get a key safe that bolts onto the wall instead of clipping onto a fence or doorknob. Then they can’t silently break the key safe off and take it somewhere else. These types of lock can be very securely mounted to wood or masonry and aren’t easily pried or knocked off. Thieves will have to break this type open on the spot and that will probably be loud or it will take time, something these people take great pains to avoid. I can open these non-destructively and recover their combinations using techniques uncovered in personal research but they probably aren’t known to the types of people who break into residential units.

So, if somebody insists that you install a key locker that hangs off of your doorknob tell them that you would rather have one installed hidden on a fence post or a wall behind a bush in your back yard. Any contractor worth his salt should be able to install one of these. I can also do so. If you call me during the day I can have one installed in Seattle for $120.

Anybody who’s hired me to unlock their door has probably heard my spiel about correct strike placement so that the lock’s deadlatch is functioning correctly. This is particularly important on doors that only have one lock, a requirement for many doors due to fire codes in commercial buildings.

If your strike plate isn’t correctly installed somebody could open your door with a credit card, butter knife or other thin tool. Other symptoms of a poor installation are

• the gap between the door and the strike plate being over 1/4 of an inch
• The door doesn’t actually latch, or you have to shut the door really hard to latch it
• if you push the door it opens without unlocking it

If you think your lock has this problem you’re going to want to fix it. You may not know how to open a door with a butter knife, but you can be sure that there are plenty of drug addicts that do. I’ve seen the aftermath of plenty of burglaries that were caused by incorrectly installed doors and locks and seen the security footage showing somebody with a butter knife or screwdriver opening a door in seconds.

How to fix the problem?

• Move the strike plate to its proper location. The small part of the deadlatch should not go into the strike hole.
• Install an astragal or latch protector. These prevent direct manipulation of your deadlatch with almost any tool, even a sawzall.
• Tighten hinge screws. Sagging doors are a common cause of improperly latching locks.
• Install rubber dampeners on door frame to prevent both parts of deadlatch going into the strike hole.

Give me a call, I’ll be happy to fix your latching problem.

If you have a lock cylinder that spins around 360 degrees or more when you try to lock or unlock it, you can’t pull your key out, or you pulled the cylinder out

with your key then chances are that the retainer cap pin sheared off. This is fairly common with Baldwin and Emtek deadbolts. For some reason the engineers that designed the lock cylinders for these two respected manufacturers designed the retainer cap pin to be thinner than the one used in Schlage locks and their knock-offs, so it is easier to wear through the pin. One would think that since both of these manufacturers offer lifetime mechanical warranties, they would design their lock cylinders more robustly so that they wouldn’t wear out.

If you are unlucky, not only is your door still locked but your lock cylinder came out of the lock and little tiny brass objects and springs fell out onto the ground. You may be reading this on your cellphone, scratching your head as you look between these words and a distressing hole in your deadbolt.

You came here to find out what to do if this happens, so here it is: if you have another locking door, use that one until the other lock gets fixed. Your broken lock is still secure if the cylinder didn’t come out, actually more secure than before it broke since somebody picking the lock would be unable to unlock it. If you have a different locking entrance you have time to call the manufacturer and demand they mail you a new cylinder cap retainer pin. Most lock manufacturers have a mechanical warranty of some kind so it’s worth it to call and find out. They may not even ask if it is under warranty still, they may just mail you new parts. If you are mechanically apt you can replace this spring loaded pin yourself by taking the lock off the door and taking the cap off the cylinder and replacing the broken pin with the new one.
If the broken lock guards the only entrance to your property, that’s trouble. Your lock is broken in such a way that in all likelihood it can’t be manipulated open by even the most skilled locksmith. The lock and door must be circumvented, or the lock must be drilled. A good locksmith will drill the cylinder out and retract the bolt and then offer to replace the cylinder. A mediocre locksmith will drill the entire lock off of the door and offer to replace it. A terrible locksmith will drill the lock and demand lots of money and then leave. The good news is that if the lock is a Baldwin or Emtek lock, they will usually still warranty the lock even if it is drilled off of the door since the whole problem was caused by a mechanical fault.

Now you may be interested why this happened. The most likely cause of this cap retainer pin shearing off is that more force is used to unlock the door than it was designed for. This is probably because either somebody who uses the deadbolt is really strong and exuberant, or the deadbolt strikeplate is misaligned for some reason. To lock or unlock a deadbolt in the latter situation extra force must be used, perhaps while pushing or pulling on the door. This is because:

• The lock wasn’t installed correctly
• Insulation was installed after the lock was, putting too much pressure on the door when it is closed
• The door and/or frame is sagging
• The door and/or frame has expanded due to moisture in the air

To prevent this from happening again, the deadbolt must be reinstalled so that the bolt slides smoothly in and out of the doorframe. A minimum of force should be exerted on the deadbolt to lock or unlock the door. Any extra force used is focused on the cap retainer pin which will shear off again in the same fashion if this issue isn’t addressed. I can ensure that the lock is properly installed to prevent this issue from reoccurring.