Yale key Fitment

Sometimes as a mobile locksmith technician it is hard keeping track of inventory, especially for those who offer multiple residential, commercial, and automotive services. Normally, most mobile locksmith technicians will have in their service vehicle the most common items such as Schlage and Kwikset locks, keys including from other common manufacturers, deadbolts, automotive keys for most common vehicles, and more> Not only there is so much you can fit in a medium size service van, but keeping track on everything is the tricky part. There will be many times in such cases where a mobile technician will have to improvise due to missing items.

Recently I got a call from a bank manager who needed a key made to one of the locks on a door inside the bank. The manager could not tell me the exact type of lock, but according to his description, it did not seem to be a lock I wouldn't have the key for. In this case I did not even though about the idea of passing through the lock shop to re-stock my van with some items since I figure I won't have any issue .

It was a risk going to do the job in the bank without the awareness of the type of lock they needed a key for since it was in a decent distant from the nearest lock shop. Unfortunately for me, the risk didn't paid off. As I got to the bank and examined the lock, I saw it was a Yale lock with a sectional rim cylinder GC key-way. Without checking, I knew I didn't have a blank for it in my van. In fact, I did not recall having to need one in any previous jobs I did.

I called a Reno locksmith coworker of mine to see if he was in the area and by chance had the correct blank for the cylinder. Unfortunately for me he wasn't, but he did gave me an interesting tip which may have saved me a 60 mile trip back and forth from the lock shop. Apparently, a Kwikset blank could potentially fit that type of cylinder with a little modification. After following the process of modifying the Kwikset key blank to fit the cylinder, I was able to cut the key and test it successfully. To not take any chances, couple of days after when I was in the bank area again, I provided the bank with the proper key for the cylinder with no extra charge.

Lock Re-key

I remember a few years ago I got a call from a customer who needed to re-key all the locks in his home. Like most locksmith technicians, once I got to the customer's home, I inspected the locks that needed to be re-keyed for compatibility making sure I could key them all the same. Most of the time its not a big deal, but In this case, the customer had four doors where each one of them had a Titan deadbolt and a Corbin entry lock. 

The first step for me was pulling all the locks. Before starting re-pinning all the locks, I did a little testing. I noticed that I was able to use the new key I made for the Titan deadbolt on the Corbin cylinder, but only when the plug was out of the sleeve. I then had an idea to grind the bottom surface of the blade about 1/32" and the key seemed to fit in the Corbin Plug even after re-pinning and assembled it. I finished re-keying all the other cylinders, put them back in the door and the customer was satisfied since now he had to worry about only one key instead of two.

Luckily, I got this idea from a Reno locksmith co-worker of mine who recommended me to always have a set of around six keys made for each common lock manufacturer before any re-key job. That way, the next time I will face a similar job, I would come prepared and save some time. It seemed that in this area, the most common lock manufacturers are Schlage, Kwikset, and Multilock, so now I have a set ready for each one of them which will save me the time of cutting them on job location.