Key for old door lock

DIY of course. It aint rocket science. Just need some needle files.

I agree get some key blanks and file.

It is doable but time consuming. Have you ever taken one apart?

Photograph it at all stages of dismantling and beware of springs.

One trick is to reassemble the components to accept an existing key and then make new internal lock gate components for that key for the others. This is generally easier than making a lot of different keys.

DIY will be cheaper but take a long time and quite demanding.

I have done it once or twice for old Victorian door locks.

Regards, Martin Brown

And then ... Any pointers or links to online advice on this?

Most of these locks have very simple keys. The differentiation was by means of warding. You can make one skeleton key (no metal near the warding) that will operate all of them. Then just take that to a key shop for duplicating.

Again if you have one key that operates one of the locks, you can easily adjust that to open all of them. Make a copy first, and fiddle around with the copy, ofc.

I'm talking about a rim lock, like this one.

The £100 in the OP sounds far too high. Try shopping around. I had a similar job done by Banhams for around £25 IIRC. The work was done by the trainee, who revelled in it.

Just go to a sensible locksmith. It's not worth spending an hour plus for a fiver - or maybe tenner now.

NT

fiver or a tenner ....... most people won't look at anything at less than £25 an Hour Do you honestly think a Locksmith is going to work for minimum wage ?

or a fiver - or maybe tenner now.

My keys to fit Victorian locks cost me a fiver each in the 90s, so probably around a tenner now. Several of those per hour is hardly minimum wage.

NT

The key blank doesn't come free - nor do the payments on the key cutting machine

No, but they are minimal. You could give us a complete financial breakdown of a locksmith's business if you like, but I see you couldn't.

NT

business rates, rent of premises for a start; then insurance, franchise commission (if it's Timpson), etc.

But nothing changes the fact the what you pay to have a key cut does not all turn into the wages of the man who cut your key.

Most high street setups are only able to copy existing keys (and not always entirely reliably if it is a tricky one). You need a proper locksmith to take a given lock and match a key to it or vice versa.

The latter is a more common requirement to have a set of matched house locks that all work off a single key. Avoids jailer keyring syndrome.

The local guy on the market stall with his ancient machine in the back of a van might be close to that but ours has retired last year.

On 14-Sep-16 12:08 PM, GB wrote: ...

Congatulations on stating the obvious. Very useful. You left out some of th e costs of course.

NT

As the OP, I wish you would all stop worrying about the cost, and tell me how to do it

I'd take the lock off the door, and go to a place and play around with blanks till I found one which looked like it had a chance of fitting. Maybe have a poke around inside to find out the dimensions - rim locks are pretty simple. Then file the blanks to fit.

I hope that if I'm wrong, somebody will now correct me, which will mean your question does at least get answered :-)

I thought we had told you what to do? Find a cheaper locksmith. :)

However, this being DIY, I would suggest that, instead of playing around with blanks, find somewhere selling rim locks and try the different keys until you find one that works, more or less. Then adjust that.

This site may give you some insight into how the locks work and maybe help you work out how to make your own key.

Tim

Thanks for that. I've read the article and found it interesting, though I doubt if I can work out how to make a key from it.