In the locksmith business, you never get to old to learn more tricks. During my years in the field, I ran into many type of jobs that required picking locks. Sometimes, picking locks can be easy which means completing the job in several minutes. However. other times, I found myself struggling working on a cylinder lock with my pick tool set. Usually in these situation, there won't be many options but to scrap the cylinder, but on a job I did a while back, I discovered there may be a different way.
I got called for a job not too long ago where the customer was complaining he couldn't work the key anymore with the lock in the front door of his home. I decided to take the job and was headed to the customer's address. When I got there, I saw that the door was actually open and the customer told me that the problem is intermittent, but probably require attention sooner then later. I then grabbed my tools and started taking the lock apart from the door. The door had a Mortise lock and seem to me as the cylinder probably needed a replacement. Luckily, I did have few replacement cylinders laying in my van.
The best cylinder I could find in my van that had close fitment with the customer's lock was a Yale cylinder. However, as I was trying to pick it, I noticed I wasn't going anywhere using this method. I decided to call a fellow
locksmith of mine for advice, and he told me I could use an uncut key blank and shim the cylinder to open it and so I did. I grabbed a Yale key blank and started playing with it in and out of the key-way while shimming it from the back and after about 20 seconds, the cylinder was open! Once I got that part done, it didn't take me a long time to get the Mortise lock back together and finish the job.
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