Author: Bjørn Madsen

If you have a Kaba Simplex 1000, it has a big vulnerability that must be fixed!

They are a common pushbutton combination lock for businesses and government facilities.  If you do have one, you had better call me so that I can install the non-ferous upgrade kit to prevent any goofball with a rare earth magnet from unlocking your door!  Anybody who bought one of these locks got it to protect important materials, and unless you get it fixed those materials just aren’t protected.

In the last week, it has come to my attention that at least 10 buildings have had their entry keys compromised by a person or persons who are targeting the lockboxes outside a building’s front door which contains an entry key and/or a master key capable of opening any door in that building, for use by the police and fire department.  This was done professionally; video evidence of the thieves show that they removed these boxes in under a minute’s time.

These buildings’ managers noticed that their box was broken into and the keys stolen, but for every manager that noticed no doubt there are two who did not notice.  These guys aren’t stealing these keys to add to some silly collection, they have a purpose in mind.  If your building’s entry and/or master key were stolen, you need to have the locks changed as quickly as possible.  The faster this is done, the less time available to the criminals who stole these keys to perform whatever nefarious purpose is in their mind.

If you have a large building and a lot of people with keys to that building, you may have quite an investment just in keys.  If you have inexpensive keys but 75 people, you are still talking about at least $150, and if you have a proprietary keyway such as Medeco you are talking about thousands of dollars just in keys.  Protect this investment by masterkeying the front door to accept the common key and another key that is kept in these lockboxes.  That way, you can just call me and have the masterpins removed in the event of a stolen mailman key.  You will save hundreds and even thousands of dollars.  I change the mailman’s key, you put it in a new stronger lockbox, and you are only out about $100.

So go outside and check to see if there are any boxes around the front door of your building, and see if there is evidence of tampering.  If there is any evidence of tampering, or if the door has obviously been pried off one, notify your apartment manager.  Perhaps suggest that he or she call Maple Leaf Locksmith to install a proprietary keyway and a stronger lockbox before somebody comes back to your building with a key that can open your door.  Capitol Hill and downtown have had at least ten of these instances, the likelihood is that there are many more buildings that have been attacked and yours could be one of them.

If you are reading this, chances are that you are holding the head of a broken key.  Usually when keys break it is because people are either torquing them too hard in the lock because they are turning the lock in the wrong direction, the lock is installed improperly, or the lock needs lubrication.  When the key breaks, it usually sheers off at the opening of the keyway.  It is really terrible when this happens, but don’t forget in your moment of despair: the part that broke off still works.  If it is in your ignition, you can probably still turn the car on and drive (as long as the head of the key is really close to the ignition.  If it is more than a foot away it most likely won’t turn on or stay turned on past 15 seconds).  If the key broke off in your door, you can still unlock the lock by sticking something else in the keyway on the very bottom and continuing the rotation of the cylinder.

Last night I had a client who was locked out of his place due to a key breaking off in his deadbolt, which was both improperly installed and needed to be lubed.  Unfortunately his key broke off before he had unlocked either lock, meaning that unless he had a spare key hidden outside somewhere, he was locked out.  I turned his deadbolt using a tension wrench for lockpicking inserted above and below the broken key and then picked his knob.

You could replicate my success by sticking pieces of wire in the keyway above and below the key, if there is room, and twisting.  In some cases, the key may shear off a little further in the keyway so you can stick a flathead screwdriver in behind the key and turn.  Don’t push on the key too hard, or it may push it past where it should be and the pins will be pushed up past the shear line!  The broken key must be resting in its natural position.

If the key sheared off sticking out of the lock partially, it can most likely be turned using a wrench or something.  As above, be careful not to push the key in or pull it out at all or else the pins will be pushed up past the shear line and the cylinder won’t turn!  This problem doesn’t occur when the key is whole because the key is designed to be inserted into the lock until the key’s “shoulder” stops its insertion.  That is, the cuts on the key are at standard lengths from the part of the key that stops its insertion; the pins must be centered in those cuts.  When they aren’t centered, usually somebody who is lazy or unfamiliar with how to cut a key probably cut your key.

Of course, if you can’t get your lock to turn you can call me.  I might be able to save your lock as I did last night, open another door without broken keys in the locks, or I could also drill it out.  Best of luck to you in your attempts to get back inside or start your car!

Locks, like other mechanical systems with moving parts, need to be lubricated to increase their lifespan of trouble-free functioning.  If you don’t lubricate your lock, it will become fussy after some years.  If you have trouble with your lock not turning even though you or your husband or wife has been liberally coating the inside of your lock with graphite powder for years, the source of your troubles could actually be because of the graphite and not in spite of it.

I see the inside of locks all the time.  I see a lot of them every day, seven days a week.  I can tell immediately when somebody has been using graphite.  It gets all over my fingers.  If I am rekeying the cylinder, it is usually really hard to knock the old pins out of the cylinder, because the graphite has formed a sort of paste around the pins.

That paste translates to trouble when you try to use a key with the same setup.  That paste makes it hard for me to move the pins inside the cylinder, and it makes it hard for a key to move them.  Rather, once the key moves past them the paste prevents the springs above the pins from pushing the pins down into the valleys of the key.  If that doesn’t happen, the lock’s cylinder plug won’t turn!

I have even run into locks where some old guy has been putting graphite in a lock for so many years that a cake of graphite has built up in the back of the lock and is so big that it obstructs the key from going in to the lock all the way, and of course if you can’t put the key all the way in your lock you can’t unlock it.

Long story short, don’t use graphite, especially outdoors.  Use WD-40 or something else like Tri-Flow.  In Seattle, these lubricants push moisture out of the lock and don’t form a paste like graphite.  In hotter climates they can form a gummy film.  If you want to use the best possible lubricant, use some powdered Teflon from Dupont.  That works a charm in all climes.  It’s just really expensive!

Imagine this: you have just come home from a long day with the groceries and your feet hurt and you need a cup of tea and an easy chair in a bad way.  You stick your key in the lock and unlock the door and turn it back to the position for removing the key, but the key doesn’t come out.  No matter how hard you pull, the key stays in the lock!  Try pushing on the lock’s face just next to the key as you pull on the key. I know it is counterintuitive, but you have to push the lock right next to the key as you pull the key out. The key will only come out when it is oriented vertically, just like it normally does.

If it pulls out, it is a (relatively) easy fix but the fix needs to be done soon or your lock will fall apart.  Most likely the problem arose due to a screw cap getting loose on your lock cylinder.  Usually all you need do to fix this is use a philips screwdriver to take your deadbolt apart and tighten the cap on your deadbolt’s cylinder by pushing the little metal pin down while twisting.  If you have another problem, at least you can push the key out from the other side.  For knobs it is too complicated to explain all of the remedies and variations of disassembly (though the same cause is possibly the root of the problem).  You will just have to call.

The reason this often happens is because the pins have dropped into the cuts of your key and when you pull on the key, the pins bind sideways instead of sliding up into their chambers as you pull the key out.  Pushing on the lock cylinder’s face keeps the lock cylinder’s chambers in line with each other so that the pins can slide up out of the way of the key!  Lubrication can stave off the problem but it won’t cure it.

If this doesn’t work you can also try the time-tested jiggling of the lock.  If you have a cheap lock, jiggling it around will make it work for years after the key has worn down over .015″ from its original cut depths.  If your lock is cheap enough, you can even jiggle it open with a popsicle stick!  If you have something narrow enough to stick next to the key in the keyway, you can lift the pins up manually.  Just be sure not to break that object off in the keyway, or your troubles will be exacerbated!

Most sliding doors can be retrofitted with a lock cylinder.  If your sliding door doesn’t have a lock on it and you want to be able to enter through this door, check to see if there is a small circular indentation in the middle of the handle on the outside.  If there is, this is a door that can be retrofitted.  The round metal perforation can be knocked out and, when the handle is disassembled, a specially shaped knob cylinder can be added.  You can come and go from your sliding door as you please.  You can also add a sort of deadbolt to your sliding glass door that cannot be jimmied with a hanger either.

Leaving your sliding door slightly ajar is very appealing during the hot summer months.  The only problem is keeping two-legged skunks from getting in!  They will use long pieces of metal to reach around the door to move a dowel or other item from the door slide and enter.  You can keep them from doing this with a drop bolt.  They are inexpensive to procure and install.  A cylinder is inexpensive to put in your door as well.  I can put a cylinder in your sliding door and a drop rod on it as well for about $150, keyed to your other locks.  Give me a call if you want me to do this for you.  I can usually get to a job within half an hour of a call.

This morning I was browsing my usual collection of websites and rss feeds when I came across some really interesting stuff: these guys combined an arduino with some 8 sided magnets to make a decoder for magnetic locks such as the mcs and the miwa.  What does this mean?  It means that somebody with one of these tools can walk up to your door and if it is unlocked they can stick this tool in and find out what the code is for your lock in a few moments.  Then they can go home and program another magnetic key that will then work in the lock.  This essentially turns your expensive magnetic lock into a toy.  To do the same with an old school pin tumbler lock would take an expert at least a few minutes to impression.

I have a Miwa cylinder sitting around here at Casa de el Bjorno but I don’t think I have the time or nerdiness to attempt anything involving an arduino.  All the same, much respect to these guys and l0ckcr4ck3r who figured this out!

On a scarier note, I wonder how long it will be until somebody designs an arduino chip with some lockpicking apparatus and can unlock standard mechanical locks?  It would be a really unfortunate game changer because we would all have to buy expensive locks.

Somewhat related, people are making tools to decode smartkey locks as we speak.  The process involves filing a kw1 key to a mirror smooth finish so that you can see the height of the wafer after the key has passed it.  There are only six possible heights.  I have spoken of smartkey insecurities before, so this is nothing earth-shattering.

If you own a warehouse in a bad part of town, people at some point might try to get into it.  They usually attempt brute force attacks like hammering the lever or deadbolt off of the wall, or twisting the lever as hard as they can until a small part breaks inside which is why you should spend a little more to get a clutched lever.  If they are slightly more sophisticated, they may attempt to open the door by attacking the latch mechanism of your lever with a screwdriver or a sawzall or hacksaw or something of that nature.  This can easily be guarded against with the addition of a latch protector.

Latch protectors come in different sizes and types.  Some are meant for residential applications and some are for commercial.  The commercial ones tend to be big ugly pieces of metal, but they also have different features that make them more useful, like a prong that goes into the door frame to prevent a criminal prying the protector back.
I take no responsibility for what you do with the following information:
They are easy to install.  Two holes in the door in the correct place is usually all that is necessary, and maybe one or two holes on the frame next to the door if there are prongs to prevent prying on the protector.  Don’t drill the prong holes too big or they won’t work and the protector can be pried just as well as if the prongs weren’t there at all.  If you don’t want to chance drilling the wrong place or installing it wrong, give me a call and I can install one very cheaply for you.  They only cost $20, installation only costs $25 on most doors, and my service call is only $65.  You can have peace of mind for $110!  (My prices already include tax)

Snow seems to throw people for a loop because it interrupts their well-practiced routines.  When it gets really cold and starts snowing and icing, people do silly things that result in getting locked out of their houses and more often their cars.  They turn the car on to get warm while they scrape the snow and ice off the windshield and, thanks to some anti-theft automobile features (car manufacturers mean well!), the car locks itself after a few minutes and your windshield is all clear, but you are left helpless looking in, standing there holding the ice scraper.

Make sure to leave your door open while you have your car running, or leave your window down.  Before you open your door, hit the snow off the top of the car and the edge of the windshield because lots of snow will fall on the seat if you don’t, and your car is like mine.  Of course, leaving the window or door open is counter productive if you are trying to warm your car up, so the other option open to you is to go to your locksmith (or even hardware store) and get a copy of your car key on a metal head blank.  This should only cost you $3 or $4, and though you can’t use it to start your car you can use it to open your door.  Have this key hidden somewhere underneath your car or in a turn signal compartment or in your coat, and you can’t lock yourself out.

This reasoning applies to buildings, too.  Just because it is snowy outside people get crazy ideas in their heads and take the trash out while rashly leaving the door locked and the keys inside.  I can’t tell you how many times I have driven up to some guy standing in the snow in a bathrobe looking sheepish because the door swung shut behind him.

So beware of yourself.  Stay calm.  Just because it is snowing, don’t lose your head and don’t let your keys leave your person.  Also make sure you shut off your water pipes outside and your heat is up higher than freezing inside!