Blog – Seattle's Maple Leaf Locksmith LLC

Dumb Mistakes

Sometimes you see something so stupefying you have to just stand there for a little bit and laugh before documenting it for others’ enjoyment. I got called out to rekey this business’s front door because the 24 hour guys they had come out to fix their front door lock didn’t bother to rekey the new lock cylinders to their key, they just handed them new keys and said “Here you go!”

I assume the same guys left the deadbolt with mounting screws facing the parking lot because they left their sticker above it. That is all kinds of screwy: they left this business less secure than it already was and then thought it would be a good idea to advertise their business above it. I find it mind-boggling.

Risk of Death: Stack-On Safes, Consumer Product Safety Commission

There are plenty of inexpensive safes out there that claim to safely store guns away from children and there are even more videos on Youtube explaining how to easily open these same safes. Anybody remotely interested in opening such safes has been aware for more than a decade that many of these safes are not suitable for safely keeping guns locked up. They do however protect people in places like Seattle and Los Angeles from being liable for crimes committed with their guns if they are stolen: these and other places legally require you to lock your firearms up.

The CSPC is taking notice of the entry level gunsafe market and has proclaimed that the biometric gun safes made by Stack-On are a risk of death due to the false positives that their biometric keypad may register: apparently the biometric keypad may open if a stranger including a child tries their fingerprint.

The CSPC recommends destroying the keypad and using a key to unlock the safe.

I have watched biometric locks proliferate. I hold my breath when installing such locks for customers. I tell them from the get-go that the biometric features may stop working or may not work very exclusively and unlock for people not even registered with the lock, and to definitely not call me expecting any kind of warranty from me if the lock stops working.

Inexpensive Chinese biometric doorknobs off of Amazon are one thing, but a 200 Ibs biometric safe failing is quite another. The first one can be mailed back to Amazon for a refund or simply thrown away if the customer decides to swallow their mistake and move on. The second will cost a lot of money to send anywhere. You will probably have to pay for a special truck with a lift gate to come pick it up. If you want to get rid of it yourself, you might be in for a surprise: the city dump might not accept safes. Back in the good old days they used to use asbestos for fireproofing material in safes and that can create a cancerous cloud of toxic dust if somebody with a bulldozer crushes a safe full of it. They also used to put tear gas cannisters in safe doors and nobody wants to get exposed to tear gas.

So it is a bit of a headache getting rid of old safes. (That might be why the magnet fishing channels on Youtube often recover safes near bridges over large rivers) If you are going to get a safe, spend a little extra. You don’t want to take chances on the thing because it is such an investment getting it to your location and then installing it. Many safe installers charge hundreds of dollars to come out and bolt a safe down into concrete floor or attach lag bolts into the floor studs.

If you really want to get a safe with biometric capabilities, you should probably get a container that will accept an aftermarket safe lock. That way if the biometric features fail you can always replace the lock with one that has more reliable biometric features or go back to an old school dial lock.

Worn out old mortise lock? Add a deadbolt and a ball catch or a magnet.

Had a customer with a misbehaving Baldwin mortise lock on their houseboat, I told them about Baldwin’s lifetime mechanical warranty and how they could get a replacement for free but they were not the original purchaser of the lock. Rather than buy a replacement for $800-1000, they asked about other options.

These people had a worn out hub so their knob didn’t retract the latch, they could get locked inside or outside. I proposed making sure the Baldwin no longer locked and using a deadbolt above it, using a ballcatch to hold the door shut. You could use a magnet to hold the door shut instead.

The trick was to replace the strike plate (in this case already missing anyway) with a blank plate. Then one can open or shut the door by pulling on the knob. When the door is pulled shut the springloaded ball catch goes into an indent on the doorframe. This was an especially nice solution because the door was a custom made mahogany.

After replacing strike with blank plate and a ball catch, electronic deadbolt added above. Baldwin still looks nice and can be used to open and close the door. This also prevents the need for ugly remodeler or wrap plates to retrofit the mortise lock. It would be a huge shame to put a brass wrap plate on this door.

The new TSA locks are harder to pick

I remember five years ago when somebody told me they had a TSA lock on their luggage to open I would think to myself, “Five minute job.”

A new dimple lock made by Abus for TSA, picked

It turns out there are hard ones, watch out for T06 TSA locks found on expensive luggage. I had one today manufactured by Abus using a dimple configuration. I think it took me fifteen minutes and some sweat. It made me work for my money! This is a good development, the other TSA locks were way too easy to unlock, even a beginner could have picked them open pretty quickly I think. These dimple pins were giving me false sets and were generally a pain with a hook pick and a standard tension wrench.

Before heaping too much praise on Abus, if they manufactured the combination part of this lock the reason I had to unlock the TSA portion was that it broke. I’ve seen the cheap plastic parts of luggage locks break before which is funny to contrast with the luggage locks made 200 years ago by some Swedish blacksmith I unlocked. That was because the key was locked inside, the lock was still working great after 200 years.

Unlocked this awesome Swedish chest. The nails were square head, probably hand forged just like the lock!

Lock Terminology, the “Standard Lock”

Effective communication is difficult, and it becomes even more difficult when we must describe something we don’t understand. People often call me asking about how much this or that service will cost and I respond asking details about what products I will be interacting with. A good example is whether somebody wants me to unlock their door. The cost depends on how difficult it is to unlock the lock or locks that are on the door. What can you tell me about the locks on your door? If it says Medeco it will likely be more difficult and costly than a lock that says Kwikset or Defiant.

More importantly these details allow me to give the customer an accurate cost breakdown. Contrast this with people who are unable to effectively describe their locks. When asked what kind of locks they want rekeyed, fixed, or replaced some people tell me that the lock is “just a standard lock”. There are many different types of standard locks! Deadbolts, doorknobs, levers, cam locks, etc. That is to say, there is no “standard lock”. We’re no better off finding out what your lock is at this point than when the conversation began!

Install August Electronic Lock on Multipoint Trim

For years I have told people that electronic locks are not really made for multipoint lock door preps. Only recently have the manufacturers started offering extremely expensive replacements for their multipoint locks that work with keypads and they are thousands of dollars. There are other silly setups like a Burg Wachter euro cylinder that used some kind of radio and a remote keypad I remember installing five years ago. There have also been many dozens who have asked me to replace their multipoint lock with a keypad they bought at the hardware store but only one of them had me go through with installation after I showed him the problems that would result.

There is another type of electronic lock though, the August deadbolt. It isn’t actually a deadbolt, more of a replacement thumbturn that can be controlled via smartphone. They can be installed to work with American style multipoint locks that have a lazy action tailpiece. It is kind of a hack and you still have to lift up on the handle before locking the august deadbolt but it does work without keys.

The first step is to acknowledge that you will probably void the multipoint lock warranty by bolting an electronic controller onto it. Maybe you will void the August deadbolt’s warranty too although I can’t see how, none of its parts are altered. The following information is actually only written for the entertainment of a very small population of door hardware nerds and is not actually meant to be a guide, if you do anything described herein it is your full responsibility and I recommend putting on a hazmat suit and two condoms and maybe also a covid mask.

The second step is to replace the lazy action tailpiece on the lock cylinder with one that is long enough to go through the door and extend past the interior trim plate. The lock I worked on today had a tailpiece that wasn’t long enough. The first tailpiece from an Ilco key in knob cylinder was longer but not long enough. The GMS kik long lazy action tailpiece was perfect.

Third is to remove the thumbturn from the interior trim plate (because we are planning to use the August deadbolt thumbturn in its place). In most cases these are held on by either a pressed on washer or a snap ring. You can reinstall this later if you decide the electronic lock is a silly idea.

Fourth step is to reinstall the multipoint trim, put the August mounting plate on the interior trim and line up the tailpiece centered in the mounting plate hole. Now mark the through bolt holes by marking the center of these holes but on the multipoint trim. Now drill and tap the holes. I recommend #8/32tpi screws because the heads are flush after install with the August mounting plate.

I found that the #8 machine screw fit in the August mounting plate best.

Now you just screw the August mounting plate on and carry on with the install. It worked great for me. The biggest problem most likely will be trying to explain to people how to lock the door. Using multipoint locks is hard enough for people without the addition of an electronic lock. For many people just the mention of an electronic lock causes their forehead to crease and their eyes to narrow.

I will say though that for regular users of such a door this will be a huge convenience.

Changing the Master Key Without Changing Tenant or User Keys

God forbid the dark day comes when your building’s master key is compromised. Perhaps it was forgotten in a lock, carelessly left on a desk, or was in a stolen purse. However it was lost, somebody has it and they may mean to use it to commit some crime. Hopefully only petty theft, but possibly assault could occur and you might be held liable. But you already know that or you wouldn’t be reading this!

The obvious thing to do aside from getting the master key back from the criminal is to change the master key to a new key without changing any of the tenant keys. Easier said than done! It is possible to do easily in some circumstances, but it may make sense if the tenant keys can’t be changed to deactivate the master key for the building until a later date. Read on for details…

Let’s start off with the perfect scenario (if one forgets about the highly imperfect start to this scenario), where a building uses a master key system that was designed with one or two chambers held constant for tenant keys but the master key is different for that chamber. In this scenario all the locksmith has to do is cut a new key to be designated the master with a different depth that the previous one for that chamber, and change the pins for that chamber. The old master key won’t work for any lock that this is done for.

In my experience this is not likely for most buildings where different locksmiths have come in and rekeyed the locks to work with the master key but haven’t adhered to any system for the building. It is possible there never was a system, or the system was drawn up on a napkin forty years ago and immediately used to blow one’s nose and thrown away. This is one of the times when it becomes obvious why it is great to have and maintain a proper master key system. Following is a more technical explanation for why this is difficult if there was not a chamber held.

Successful masterkeying requires paying attention to many details. Different lock manufacturers have different specifications for what pins can be used in their locks. Some locks, like those manufactured by Sargent, are machined to such tight tolerances that you can use master pins only .020″ thick. These are thin little round pieces of brass that enable one more key to work for each one. Add two of these in a pin stack and you can have two more keys work in that lock cylinder. If you put that same .020″ pin in a Schlage or even worse Kwikset cylinder it will jam up. Not immediately for the Schlage but eventually it will. It will happen almost immediately for the Kwikset lock which typically have very loose tolerances.

In a master key system there are many more rules and limitations based on the angle of the cuts on the key and other boring things I will leave out because I’m not trying to write a book but suffice it to say that if you have a building with say twenty units and everybody’s lock is using the same pins on the first chamber, you can make a new master key work in that chamber but you can’t make the old master key stop working for that chamber because everybody else’s key has the same cut as the master key for that chamber.

Another problem that prevents easily changing the master key is if tenant keys are differing by depths of something other than a standard depth. Master key systems cannot work properly if there are keys that are cut too closely to the master key. Schlage master key systems are supposed to work in increments of .015″, for example, but a master pin can not be less than .030″. If you have a system that isn’t really a system but actually just a hodgepodge of keys that are compatible but not in a system it becomes somewhat difficult to change the master key because in the second chamber all of the tenant keys may be .030″ different from the original master key but all other possible cuts for the master key could be .015″ difference.

To make it even more complicated, if we are being responsible human beings we must consider whether or not the master key might work in these locks even after changing the pins by pulling it out slightly. I subcontracted for another locksmith who controlled the restricted keyway for a customer I was doing this very thing for, we were changing the master key without changing the tenant keys. The new master key that they chose had different depths but unfortunately if you pulled the old master key out a little bit in the locks keyed for the new master key it lifted the pins to the right height. This was partially because some doofus in the past filed some of the plugs which made the cylinders have looser tolerances.

Assuming that your building is like many apartment buildings in Seattle you probably have a hodgepodge of keys not conforming to an actual system. The best I can do for you is measure the depths of all of your keys, make a matrix, and from that figure out the least invasive way to change the master key. It may be possible in a small building to choose a new master key without impacting anybody else. It may be required to change one tenant’s keys in order to keep the master key from working.

I know that this is probably an impenetrable mental puddle of barf to anybody but me or maybe another locksmith or at best a lock enthusiast but hopefully the takeaway is that master key systems depend on rules about how compatible keys are cut and if the tenant keys aren’t all created based on a sensible system like rolling constant, the chances of changing your master key in an existing system without changing at least a few tenant keys can be unlikely.

Lock battery fail – you ought to use AA batteries

Saw this one today, customer bought a house and wanted me to rekey all of their locks, was wondering why the electronic lock didn’t work. I have never seen this in my life. You pulled AA batteries out of it, why would you put noticeably smaller batteries in it? AA and AAA alkaline batteries do actually put out the same amount of voltage at 1.5V but AAA will only last half as long and being shorter might mean that the lock only works intermittently. Those springs are designed to push up against a longer battery. Most locks use AA or 9V batteries. If in doubt it probably says in the battery compartment what kind of battery you are supposed to use!

While on the subject of batteries and locks I should also throw this out there: not all batteries of the same form factor put out the same voltage. A AA battery might put out 1.2 to 1.6V. If the lock requires 4 batteries and is expecting 1.5 volts from all of the batteries but only getting 1.2 it is a voltage drop of over 1V, and it might not be enough for the lock’s motor to turn. Rechargeable batteries don’t usually put out 1.5V, they put out 1.2V, and the lock will not work reliably. Failed electronic locks are one of the top reasons I get called for lockouts. Most devices are still designed for alkaline batteries. Lithium batteries are of different chemistry but put out 1.5V too. Alkaline batteries maintain the correct voltage for longer too, rechargeable batteries will quickly lose voltage. That is fine for a flashlight, it only gets dimmer. For things with integrated circuits and stuff that needs a more regulated voltage it will more likely stop working altogether.

When you change the lock’s batteries keep your eye out for corrosion of the terminals. Rust is obviously bad. If you see a white powder that is probably leaked battery acids which solidify into metal salts. Careful cleaning that stuff, if you scrape it off the spring terminal it could fly in your eye. Vinegar will dissolve it and then you can wipe it up. Don’t go being an idiot and pour vinegar into the battery compartment, apply it with a q-tip or something. A bunch of vinegar sloshing around in the lock will not do the circuit board any favors.

When I got into safe work some years ago I noticed the main thing safe guys like to obsess about is batteries. All locksmiths are obsessed with lubricants and which one is the best, safe guys are very particular about batteries. Brand and expiration date mostly. If you want to watch a safe guy’s head explode call them and say you have a warranty issue about a safe lock they installed and make sure there are dollar store batteries in the keypad and claim that they installed those batteries. They will go Tasmanian Devil on you, frothing at the mouth while sputtering and choking out guttural sounds that might remind you of “Energizer” and “Duracell” as they knock everything down around them like a whirling dervish with crossed wires.

These things also matter to your electronic deadbolt: Duracell batteries with an expiration date several years in the future will last a lot longer than some batteries you found covered with a curious sticky substance and cat hair at the back of the bottom shelf at TJ Maxx.

Repairing a Door Frame, Emergency

Got called out to fix a kicked-in door downtown. It was a wild night with Pres. Biden visiting town, an escaped zebra running around in the mountains and the base level anarchy that occurs in downtown Seattle on any given day. It was no surprise that a Belltown apartment building’s door got kicked in.

The strike plate and a chunk of wood were missing. I could screw it all back in but the zeitgeist dictates that somebody would only kick it in again. I decided to replace the busted out wood with a ninety degree piece of weldable steel (angle iron) and screw it in from the side and the back.

I hope that this will give future would-be door kickers a little more sport. For anybody trying to replicate, 3/4″ angle iron with 3″ screws countersunk from the side and 2″ screws from the back. This will distribute the force of a kick across a much wider area than the small t-strike that was there before.

You have to remove the wood where the steel will go first, then countersink for the screws, drill pilot holes and then sink the screws in. Then cut a hole for the latch. Only cut it big enough for the deadlatch latch to go in, not the button. I don’t have a picture of this but these people made a great picture illustrating this:

Armor Concepts’ Door Armor: A Review

I don’t want to sound like a shill but let’s get this out of the way first: I think the “Jamb Protector” these folks make is probably the best security improvement most people can make if they already have a decent deadbolt and they install it properly. I have been installing these for years, before they were sold in the big box stores. They have kind of a shoddy marketing department but I’m a believer because I’ve seen their products stop breakins and I’ve fixed lots of frame damage after breakins with them. Now, on to the review.

I think most people will buy the “Door Armor Max” set. It comes with the venerable “jamb protector” pictured below which is essentially a 48″ long strike plate. It comes with screws that are longer than 3″. This will spread the force of an attempted breakin across a much wider area than even the best deadbolt strike and I would say that this is the most important piece of the set. This part alone is very good for fixing frame damage after a break-in, especially if the frame was split or even worse if parts of the frame are missing (see bottom of page).

The “Hinge Shield” after install. Force is distributed over a very large amount of wood. To get the door to shut snugly, lip cut off lip strike.

Here is a cup strike that was destroyed by somebody prying open a door with a crowbar. They got in.

The set also comes with some “Door Shields” that slide over the edge of the door. If you mortise these in they will be flush with the edge of the door. If your house is of new construction it may be better not to mortise them in. Many new houses have a quarter inch gap between the door and frame, you want to keep that gap as small as possible. Surface mount everything and all of a sudden the gap will be much smaller.

On that note, there is an important thing to remember with these long screws: if you overtighten them they will actually drag the doorframe over and if you aren’t careful it will pull your door out of alignment and maybe pull your doorframe away from the door edge far enough that it no longer latches! It could also cause your hinges to squeak annoyingly which is a symptom of their coming premature failure. This isn’t discussed in their documentation. I would advise you to get a 5/32″ drill at least 4″ long to drill pilot holes and also a self-centering drill bit. It will make it easier to get the screws flush (as they can be, more on this later) without throwing the doorframe out of alignment.

Moving on to maybe the most interesting part because it is also the least well designed: the “hinge shield”. The idea is good and Armor Concepts is correct that the hinges are a weak point for a lot of doors with only 1/2″ screws. Additionally I cannot say that I could make a better product. What I will point out are the flaws that I see in this product: if installed, they prevent the door from shutting easily because they block the hinge from closing and when the door is forced close bends the hinge and may cause premature failure of that hinge. This is exacerbated by the fact that the screwheads for this product are of a larger diameter than the taper of the holes in the “hinge shield” and so they don’t actually go flush no matter how much you tighten the screw.

It is therefore my recommendation to not use the hinge shield and instead replace the screws in your hinges with 3.5″ deck screws. It may be that Armor Concepts has done some comparisons between doorframes that have inexpensive hinges with long screws and their product with there being some benefit to doors with their product but as somebody who fights doors with bad hinges or improperly hung doors once a week, I cannot bring myself to condone a product that purposefully spreads a hinge.

Speaking of spreading a hinge I didn’t see this in their documentation when I installed one of these sets earlier this week but here’s a tip: if your door is springing open after installing the hinge shield and it is hard to shut the solution is either to mortise your hinges in at an angle so there is space for the hinge shield when the door is shut (hard) or you have to bend your hinge (easy). The easiest way to do that is to take your trusty 5/32″ drill bit from earlier and stick it between the two parts of the hinge right next to the swivel point and shut the door CAREFULLY so you don’t pinch your fingers and also so you don’t overly bend your hinge. It should be done incrementally until there is an acceptable amount of force to shut your door. If you overdo it, the door might sag and drag on the threshold and then you will have to replace your hinge or hire a handyman to fix it. You have to do this on all hinges on the door too if you want the door to remain level. I hope that I communicated how to do this properly but it is probably confusing.

More tips on installing these sets: if you want to properly set up the strike for the latch you will need to cut off the lip of your latch because you can’t install the jamb shield over a lip strike properly. My solution is to cut the lip off the strike and reinstall. That way it will properly position the door against the weatherstripping and set your deadbolt up to work correctly. If you can see daylight through the edge of your door or feel a breeze consider doing this. There is no good way to use the jamb shield on its own to position doors properly for the deadbolt to work smoothly unless you add a ton of weatherstripping in my experience. One elegant way to do it is to have a strike underneath the jamb shield.

If I were to recommend improvements to the manufacturer I would say that the number one improvement would be to make sure that the screw heads are the same size as the countersink in the hinge shield. Second I would say they should include a lipless adjustable strike that will work underneath the jamb shield, especially important in this age of electronic deadbolts. Other than that there isn’t much to be improved! Hats off to Armor Concepts not only for a well-designed product but also for making bank selling it through Lowe’s. I remember maybe five years ago before Lowe’s carried it calling their business number and some guy in his car answered. They probably have a secretary now.

madsenbjorn

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