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LocksportSouth's Stash

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LocksportSouth

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Posts: 369

Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:51 pm

Location: UK

Post Sat Aug 27, 2016 7:04 pm

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

Not long after ordering that last Rotalok (the Abloy Exec one), I came across the following whilst browsing, coincidentally from the same seller:

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It’s an Abloy 250 – so it’s from the older generation of Abloys (200 vs 300 series) and I assume is roughly comparable with the chunky 350 – but rather than having the Classic or (High) Profile core as you’d expect, this one is another Exec! So, yep.... Had to get it :D.

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Shiny!

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250 – also look at the dirt in the groove! I guess this lock was stored in the same place as the Rotalok, cos it’s also filled with black gunky stuff – which means another full clean! This time though, fresh out of stripping the Rotalok’s Exec, I’m better equipped and prepared, so the (dis)assembly process should go a bit smoother!

The top of the lock is marked “Hardened”:

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Note that the groove is also significantly narrower than in the 300 series – an easy way to tell them apart.

Abloy Finland:

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Side hole for grub screw access as per the 300 series:

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Looking a bit grimy in there:

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Exec keys:

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The shackle is marked with “Boron”:

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Fun to see something different in an Abloy... Ok it’s still an Abloy key, but it’s an Exec! Different!:

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Unlocked:

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Down inside the ‘ole:

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In terms of disassembly, it’s basically identical the to the 300 series locks. First unlock the lock, then remove the small grub screw from the side hole once the shackle is clear:

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That’ll allow you to unscrew the bottom plug:

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Seems that the bottom-most profile disk came with it!

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Oh no, it’s not the profile disk, it’s a (I assume) free-spinning anti-drill disk:

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And there’s the profile disk and the rest of the cylinder:

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Removal is basically the same as a 300, just stick the key in and yank it out... Carefully:

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The cylinder is basically the same as the one from the Rotalok so I’ll try to avoid going into too much technical detail this time.

Cylinder front and profile disk:

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DSS ring (the Disk Steering System, remember that from the Rotalok review?) and the two ½ disks:

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½ disks removed:

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DSS ring removed. Should have been wearing gloves!:

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Various bits so far (including the central alignment rod (for lack of a better term):

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And the other half of that pile:

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Back to the cylinder:

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Like last time, we’ll be placing this in a vice to disassemble. Wouldn’t want to lose these!

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Post stripping:

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Recall that I mentioned being more wise to this system’s innards and thus taking more care this time? I made absolutely sure to take the disks out and put them all down the same way, realising that flipping them could lead to... problems. I’ll also only be cleaning them one disk at a time, to minimise the risk of mix-ups. On top of that, I took a LOT of photos of all the disks laid out (more than I uploaded here) to give myself a reference point if anything got mixed up.

Is that... Dirt in the disk carrier?

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Time to take out the last bits! Glad I kept this photo of the actuator as it helped later.. I’ll get to that!

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Slimy:

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I really struggled to get a clear shot of this BB for some reason:

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Here they are, emptied out:

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Actually, after removing one BB, I took the lock out of the vice (it was upside down, so the vice was holding the shackle and I grabbed the body) and forgot that Abloys basically hold the shackle in with the ball bearings and actuator. The result being a shackle and BB rolling all over the floor, lol!

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The shackle looks pretty grimy, especially on the end:

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All the parts laid out and ready to clean!

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Instead of four pots of WD40, this time we’ll be using two:

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One of GUNK, one of WD-40. Both to help avoid confusion and also to avoid wasting chemicals, and to ensure a thorough clean by using both types of chemical. I changed the order of these shortly after, since the process was basically:

* Take disk, dunk gently in GUNK
* Wipe thoroughly on paper towel
* Dunk and wipe again 2-3 times, scraping off any dirt or black stuff
* Dunk and wipe in WD-40 1-2 times to try and clear any blemishes

I also cleaned key disks and spacers separately – took a bit longer but I think it’s worth the effort!

Before all that though, I cleaned the larger items as with the Rotalok:

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And also dropped the body and shackle into a big pot of gunk to soak while I did this.
Concerningly, after cleaning off the first disk, I found quite a few fragments of copper ‘sawdust’ in amongst the gunk – seems that the key can wear the disks down and chip away at them. It’s hard to see but here’s a pic:

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You can just about make out the little golden specs near the top-middle to top-left of the big black smudge in the middle. Eep!

Skip ahead of the boring stuff, and all the disks are clean!

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And after the customary cloth-and-screwdriver jabbing-clean on the body and good rubbing-down of the shackle, everything is shiny and clean!

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Re-assemble the disk in reverse order:

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I did check it with a key 2 or 3 times and all the disks were lined up correctly – seems that forethought paid off!

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DSS disk and ½ disks inserted:

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Front profile:

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Locked:

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Unlocked!

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Nice:

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(Note that the bar is only falling out due to gravity, not ill-fitting-ness :))

Lube up those balls :D

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And the actuator and spring:

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Put it all back in:

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Ready for final assembly!

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Hmm, what’s this?

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The bottom plug just would NOT screw on all the way. Tightening it didn’t help, I tried flipping the front disk, nothing. Hmm. Finally dawned on me that the actuator must be around the wrong way. Remember how I said earlier that taking that pic of the actuator was probably a good idea? The photo helped me rotate it to line up the way way it was when disassembled. D’oh! At least I didn’t have to disassemble the disk pack! (though I nearly lost it once or twice when trying to pull it out with the key, lol!)

With the bottom plug finally in and fully tightened, it’s time for my next (mini) screw up – why won’t that grub screw go back in? Or, more to the point, it goes in about 80% of the way and then the shackle just catches on it. Hmm. Thankfully I remembered that tiny optic torch I bought. One of my better investments for photography I have to say!

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A screw thread... Oh yeah, you can’t fully tighten the bottom plugs. Need to loosen them slightly so that one of the every-one-quarter-turn holes lines up with the grub screw hole, like this:

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Pop the grub screw in, and we’re done!

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Open (smoother than before, for sure!):

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Tagged and ready to go!

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I’m not honestly sure where I’ll be able to put these – there’s no more room on the Abloy line on my lock board and I’m already “borrowing” the space for the 656, which is where the 358 will eventually go, so that’s two big Abloys to find a home for. Hmm. I’ll have to ponder that!

In the mean time, thanks for reading along!
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LocksportSouth

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Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:51 pm

Location: UK

Post Mon Aug 29, 2016 3:14 am

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

I picked up something very cool recently:

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An Anchor Las 880-4 factory cutaway! This is the same lock sold by SecuritySnobs but I got mine second-market from a UK seller. It’s a lovely lock and I do love Anchor Las in general, and I’ve been hoping to start collecting them for some time – that may be a way off at the moment but this cutaway makes a great start to the collection!

Anchor Las padlocks are very similar to Abloys in many ways and we’ll look at the similarities and differences as we go through this mini-review. I won’t be breaking this lock down as that’s kind of the point of a cutaway anyway, but we should be able to see the operation of the lock via the cut-outs.

First, let’s started with the keys and locking mechanism – they both use a disk detainer system, and whilst Abloys generally tend to be built specifically to take an Abloy cylinder, some Anchor Las models are designed to take a standard half-Euro cylinder, much like the Rotalok. This specific model that I have takes the standard Anchor Las disc detainer cylinder. Let’s take a look at the key:

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Each key is stamped with “Anchor Las Sweden”, and the characteristic keyring hole, which has a practical as well as aesthetic purpose – we’ll get to that! The key shaft itself is similar to Abloy ones but is cut only on one edge so it does have a “correct way round” unlike Abloys. You can see a notch cut out of one side in the photo, which is used to ensure the key is aligned correctly when inserted.

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Here we can see the cuts in the key. It’s somewhat hard to tell from the cuts, but according to a sticker on the front of the lock this is an 11-disk cylinder. I’d like to know how many cut angles are possible, and thus how many differs (and how many degrees apart the cut possibilities are) since it looks like maybe there aren’t as many variations on the Anchor Las as with the Abloy. However after consulting my lock bible (Graham Pulford’s “High-Security Mechanical Locks”) and checking LockWiki and Google for any possible Han Fey articles, I’m drawing a blank – if anyone knows this information, please fill me in!

Anchor Las uses a paper code “card” tag rather than Abloys’s cards:

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It certainly has a nice oldy-worldy-charm to it but I fear it’s likely to get lost, damaged or stolen if kept with the keys, so store it away safely!

Here’s the lock from a top view:

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Notice how even the lock itself follows that one-edge-higher-than-the-rest design from the key!

Here you can see that the Anchor Las uses the same bottom plate/plug retention system as the Abloys:

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That is, a small hole is drilled through the body, which is blocked by the long end of the shackle when the padlock is in the closed position. When unlocked, a hex key can be inserted into the hole and used to unscrew a grub screw which holds the bottom plug on, and the cylinder sits behind that. There’s a big difference though – whereas the Abloy then screws into the hole at the bottom of the lock body, the Anchor Las bottom plug appears to be a large spool shape, with the grub screw fitting in the middle of that spool. This means that if forced, the bottom plug would spin unlike the Abloys, and also that once the grub screw is removed, the plug would fall straight out.

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Another angle of the bottom of the lock! Note also the two drain holes at the bottom of the shackle holes, same as with the Abloys.

The shackle is impressively bulky and solid-feeling:

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Another body shot:

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Here you can see the ball bearings blocked by the actuator (top cutout) and the brass cylinder (bottom cut).

Here’s the other side of the lock, and what I assume the cutout side would look like if it weren’t cut:

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Note the engraving saying “Key” at the bottom, that aligns with the key in a way we’ll explain soon.
Side shot showing the cylinder in the locked position (all the tabs aligned and at one end of the cylinder, very much like Abloy):

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If you look carefully into the keyway, you can see that is has a not-square shape – it has a cut on one corner:

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(apologies for the dark photo; I can’t get my camera to agree with me on that one!)
You’ll also notice that the key has the same shape:

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Obviously those sides must align in order to insert the key. But how can you tell which way around you need to insert the key without fruitlessly trying all the possible variations?

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Simply align the keyring cutout on the key with the shape stamped onto the lock – and that’s the correct way around to insert the key! If that’s not enough, the shape of the body of the lock also aligns with this shape :).

Key inserted:

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Rotating to unlock position – note the disk tabs starting to rotate clockwise from their resting edge:

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The disks are now aligning and the cylinder is rotating:

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You can now see the other side of the disk pack, with the sidebar depressed (although it doesn’t look it, in the photos):

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And from a top down view (also a better shot of the bottom plug retention screw in the bottom plug spool cutout:

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In truth, this style of cutaway (possibly any style) doesn’t really make it easy to understand how disk detainers work, as you can’t see the insides of the disks or the full operation which would require cutouts on the back and side, but it’s still cool nonetheless!

You’ll notice that the actuator at the top of the lock has now rotated, as with the Abloys, freeing the ball bearings and allowing removal of the shackle:

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Unlocked:

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Closing again:

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Rotated to the locked position, you can see how the BBs are blocked by the actuator sides:

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Note that as you return the key to the locked position, the disk tabs have already lined up before the reach the final resting place:

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It’s hard to tell exactly where they line up as you can’t see that part in this cutout. I suspect it’s different for each lock due to the different possible cuts.

Tabs fully lined up / closed:

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It’s an exciting new day when we need to assign a new key tag colour!

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Tagged and ready:

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These cutaways will be going in a display cabinet when I get one! For now, sadly, they have no home except a storage drawer – really itching to get these out on display!

Thanks for reading along :).

Bonus Special Update!

I wasn’t planning on stripping this lock but shortly after photographing it and doing the write-up, one thing bugged me – how does the bottom plug attach to the cylinder? It looks like there’s a connection there. And how does the cylinder attach to the actuator? So, I decided to do a quick series of pics to explore that. I won’t be doing a full cylinder breakdown (I’ll leave that for a full Anchor Las review one day) but I do want to look at how the cylinder operates on both ends.

First, here’s the grub screw from the side. Note that the threading fits into threading cuts directly in the body, and the nub at the end of the screw slots into the spool-like cutout on the bottom plug:

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Due to the plug not having a screw-fitting like the Abloys, and due to a spring somewhere up the chain (I assume between the actuator and the top of the lock; I didn’t look), as soon as you loosen the grub screw, the plug pops out a bit:

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With the cylinder assembly removed, here’s the inside of the lock:

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You can just about see the slotted end of the actuator at the top.

Here’s the cylinder and plug assembly:

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The sidebar is a lot longer than it looks and the back sits into a hole at the back of the cylinder:

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Here’s the cylinder with aforementioned hole at the back:

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In earlier photos, the silver plug assembly looked attached to the bottom of the cylinder, and seemed to move with it. However, it’s actually made up from two parts:

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This is the main bottom plate/plug. I did wonder if it were actually two halves that rotated independently, but nope, it’s actually one solid piece. It has a round hole through it:

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This allows the key to enter and turn without touching or interacting with this plug at all – it stays totally stationary, and does not interact with the cylinder. It exists only to hold the cylinder in place and provide destructive attack protection. Presumably if a lot of rotational force were applied, it would spin as there’s nothing obstructing the central spool ring. The grub screw would not be “dislodged” this way because at the back of the grub screw hole, the shackle would block the exit path.

However, in addition to this inert bottom ring, there’s also a thick steel disk that acts as something between a profile disk, anti-drill plate and bottom plate:

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It’s thick enough to provide serious protection, but the cutout in it is shaped for the key and thus it actually rotates with the cylinder when the key is inserted. However, it is also free-spinning and as such provides good attack protection – probably better than Abloy in that regard!

Here’s the top of the disk pack with the thick profile/anti-drill disk removed:

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The top disk doesn’t seem to have any false gates (the others do, which I observed during disassembly) so I assume this is a profile disk. However I won’t be stripping the cylinder further for reasons explained above.

With the cylinder re-assembled, you can see how it works:

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The key is passing through the inert large bottom ring, and into the thick profile/anti-drill ring (the last, lower silver thing before you reach the brass) and finally into the disk pack. In this position you can also see the sidebar in the open position – whilst it does look like it is not slotting into the disks if you compare it to the disk cuts, you can see that it DOES sit flush inside the brass disk pack carrier.

You can also barely make out the rectangular nub (on the far right hand side, where the sidebar slots down between two sticking-out pieces of brass) which goes all the way along the back of the cylinder – this is what slots into the cutout in the actuator (touched on briefly in the photo of the lock body without cylinder) and which rotates the actuator.

Ok, NOW I’m done! :). Thanks for reading!
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Tok36

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Post Mon Aug 29, 2016 11:03 pm

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

Thank you for going into such detail. Interesting stuff.
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LocksportSouth

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Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:51 pm

Location: UK

Post Mon Aug 29, 2016 11:18 pm

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

Just a quick update, it occurs to me that in my last post I briefly mentioned and showed my key tag stack without explaining it further. You may have seen my posts with new locks which I sometimes end by showing the keys with a key tag on and I mentioned that they’re “tagged and ready to go” or something of that nature. To keep some semblance of order and organisation, I tend to remove the keys that come with the locks I buy from any keyrings that they’re currently on and add them to a new keyring, which contains the keys, a lobster clasp, any optional stuff (e.g. metal code tags etc) and finally a key tag.

The key tags are colour coded to the brand of lock, and I sort the keys themselves into drawers or the appropriate type. I also keep a master key tag bunch to help me identify which lock types use which colour tags – in case I forget! Here’s the bunch:

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We’ll now go through each colour and brand!

Blue – Abloy:

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Green – Cisa:

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White – Ingersoll:

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Red – Chubb:

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Black – Ruko:

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Yellow – Military*:

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(* Technically a bit confusing since “Military” isn’t a brand. Most of these are S&G padlocks with Medeco cores, but I didn’t want to make it too specific to S&G and Medeco has its own colour also as some Medeco locks aren’t in military bodies. Locks vs cores makes it tough to know how to organise but I came up with Yellow for S&G locks first so it stuck!)

Orange – Special Locks*:

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(* I first set this one up when I had a random-brand bicentric lock and a Forever Lock that both needed a tag, and I didn’t plan on getting any more locks of this type. “Special Locks” basically means brand one-offs that I don’t plan to collect a lot of, or locks that have special or unusual keys. Saves using precious colours needlessly!)

Hot Pink – Abus:

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Purple – Assa and EVVA*:

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(* Originally this was just ASSA, and the next tag was just Medeco. However after I got the next lock type (it was either EVVA (on this tag) or Yale (on the next tag), I can’t remember) it occurred to me that I’ve nearly run out of colour types. To avoid using up the last two tags too quickly, I started bundling two brands that I don’t plan on having a lock of locks for, onto the same colour tags. The keys are still physically separated into different pots (i.e. an ASSA pot and an EVVA pot) but using the same tag colour means I’ll eventually be able to have double the number of lock brand variations as I would if I had only one brand per colour).

Light Blue – Medeco and Yale:

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Teal – Anchor Las:

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There’s still one unused tag – dark blue. I’m going to try and avoid assigning Yellow (Military), Pink (Abus) or Blue (Abloy) more than one lock type as those are brands that I either have a lot of locks of that brand, or plan to get a lot. However that still leaves a good number of blank spaces ready for new brands :).

The keys are organised into a filing drawer like so:

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Hope you found this random diversion somewhat interesting!
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Papa Gleb

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Post Tue Aug 30, 2016 4:10 pm

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

Love the organization very much and the locks, pics, write ups etc. Keep em coming bud.
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LocksportSouth

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Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:51 pm

Location: UK

Post Tue Aug 30, 2016 5:32 pm

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

Papa Gleb wrote:Love the organization very much and the locks, pics, write ups etc. Keep em coming bud.


Thanks! Will do :)


I picked up another cool lil Chubb the other day:

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There’s a couple of cool features with this Chubb – one is the fact that it takes an AVA key, the other one I’ll get to soon.

Another shot:

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The key:

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I love Chubb’s thick rugged keys! Interestingly this one is quite different from the Hercules that I already have – the bitting is a lot more slanted:

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It’s an original CHUBB stamp rather than Union:

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The keyway area is pretty cool:

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I can’t find any way to disassemble this, so I assume it was forced together somehow and this bottom plate seems to be separate from the outer body elements, but in truth I’m not sure how it was assembled.

And here’s the cool part:

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The lock has some kind of NSN or similar identifier, as well as the Broad Arrow, a military designation (I recall when I posted one of my old locks that had this, I variously heard that this is a British army designation, MoD or a NATO one, possibly something else too but I’m not 100% sure outside of knowing that it’s military designation.

Unfortunately despite copious searching I’ve not been able to figure out what kind of number code this is (for example, is it an NSN or something else? I’ve searched all the NSN databases I can with no result, and most of the formatting guides aren’t formatted like the way that this number is – 3-4-4). The auction that I bought this lock from mentioned that it’s a 1986 padlock, which I assume they are assuming based on the last 4 numbers of this ID, but I’ve not been able to find out much more other than this seems to be a variant on the Chubb 1K42. If anyone has any more info, I’d love to hear it!

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Unlocked:

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There are no removal screws:

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And the entire body is sealed so I assume that’s as far as we can go. Still though, this is an awesome piece to add to the collection. Still, a shame that I still haven’t had the opportunity to strip down an AVA yet!
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LocksportSouth

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Posts: 369

Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:51 pm

Location: UK

Post Wed Aug 31, 2016 9:10 am

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

You may remember that quite some time back I picked up what I called a “Vintage Ingersoll” laminated close-shackle padlock with an Ingersoll key. It was in fact a Miracle Lock body with an Ingersoll core. You may have also seen my recent proliferation of AVA-based locks with the Chubb Hercules (1K57) and that brass Chubb AVA padlock.

Today, we combine the two:

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This is essentially the exact same body as the miracle lock that I already have, except that it uses the AVA core. I believe that AVA is made by several companies, not just Chubb and indeed you’ll see that the key shape is different here – flat keys rather than the Chubb ones with the rounded central stem and flat leaves coming off of that. However, I’m hoping that maybe I’ll finally get a chance to take a look inside the AVA system!

The bottom of the lock is quite different to my other one, missing the two large rivet bumps and with a totally different bottom plate:

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The Ingersoll one was also co-branded as Sub. Liquidonics as well as Ingersoll and Miracle Lock so I assume that goes some way to explaining the differences. For reference, here’s a shot of the bottom of my Ingersoll one:

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Another shot of the bottom:

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Now let’s take a look at the keys:

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On one side, “Miracle Lock Div. Of H.O. Boehme INC”
On the other:

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“U.S. Property Do Not Duplicate 060716”

So we know that this particular lock is a military one.
The bitting is pretty cool, and you can see the similarities to my other (Chubb) AVA locks even if it’s a different shape key blade:

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The top of the lock is more-or-less the same as the other Ingersoll one. Note the four rivets/rods that hold the plates together:

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Being extra-closed shackle, the shackle is totally removable on this lock, although a little stiff:

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Let’s see if we can disassemble it!
Like the other Miracle Lock and all Ingersolls (I swear there are some very close design similarities between the two, I assume they either collaborated or one company took the others’ ideas at some point), the bottom plate is removed via unscrewing two Phillips screws at the bottom of the shackle holes:

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However, unlike the Ingersolls and other Miracle where the entire bottom comes off the lock, with this lock only a bottom plate cut out from rest of the body is removed:

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The bottom plate is surprisingly thick! Thicker than it looks by looking at the depth of the key hole:

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Of course, this is due to the section of the bottom plate where the cylinder sits being recessed down into the bottom plate. The extra “height” and thickness of the bottom plate helps protect the screws from drilling and such.

Uh-oh – looks like the core is very much disassemble-able:

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The disks are already coming away when removing the bottom plate! Better flip this sucker on its head to prevent all the disks from spilling out everywhere!

Here’s the bottom plate removed:

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And the inside, showing the circular cutout for the core area and the smaller cutout for the key plate:

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Inside of the lock with the bottom plate removed:

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You can see the large screw holes where the bottom plate fits. The big silver disk in the middle is to align the key properly (it only goes in one way round, so the little nub on the left hand side of the keyway aligns with a groove in the key) and possible also to act as a “stop” to prevent the cylinder from turning too far.

With the guide plate removed, you can see the... Disks? Levers? Sliders?

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It’s an interesting system – rather than using pre-cut disks like an Abloy or having inserting the key line up the levers like an Ingersoll, these sliders are basically pulled back and forth according to the key bitting until they are flush. Something like that, still figuring the system out! Note the silver nub at the top which goes between the outermost brass segment and the second one in, and finally resting against the inner disks – that’s one end of a sidebar.

Here’s the other side of that profile disk from earlier:

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Another shot of the inside:

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On the bottom of the left and right hand side outermost brass disks you can see two nubs that are used as stops for the profile disk. You can also see the sticking-out edges of the inner disks (towards the bottom of the pic) that need to line up flush in order for the core to turn.

Key inserted in the correct direction:

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Another shot of the mechanism:

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Here, the key is rotated to its fullest extent:

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At this position you can see that the edges of the sliders are lined up flush and are able to rotate within the inner walls of the outermost holder.

Another angle, showing the retracted sidebar:

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I’m not 100% sure of whether the sidebar and disk edges are both used to prevent rotation or whether the sidebar has a different function, I’ve played with the lock for a while now and still not quite sure how it works. It’s certainly a masterpiece of engineering!

Here’s one of the sliders:

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From what I can figure out, the holes in the middle of these seem to be all the same and it’s the outer arms that differ. Here’s the other side:

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The serrated portion at the bottom presses against where the sidebar sits in the shell, I assume for pick-resistance.

Note that the top slider is numbered “7”. The next one down is “6”:

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After “5” I assumed this was just the slider number (i.e. X of Y sliders, like the order) until I hit “T” sliders and then “5” again:

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I assume therefore that this is the type-of-slider number (i.e. the bitting).

All the sliders laid out:

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Looking at the left and right hand wings of the sliders, you can just about tell how they differ.

With all the sliders removed, this is the inside of the shell:

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Here you can see the large outer carrier (top and bottom-most large brass pieces), the inner carrier that the disks sit into (separated by the sidebar at the top position) (this connects to the actuator), the sidebar (around 12 o’clock), and another part at the bottom of the assembly (the bright brass part).

Here’s the carrier assembly removed from the lock:

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Inner disk carrier removed from the outer shell:

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You can also see the sidebar sitting loose. Note that the outer shell does not rotate; the inner carrier (that I’m holding) rotated within the outer shell.

Sidebar:

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It’s not round, but oblong. Here’s another look at the outer shell, top side:

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... And bottom side – this sits against the outside of the actuator in the lock body:

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Here’s the slider carrier:

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And with the smaller part removed:

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It’s hollow at the bottom – also note the rectangular shape that slots into the actuator:

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This little brass part sits in that hole:

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And the top part, which also has a hole in it:

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I’m really not sure what the purpose of this is, I’m afraid.
Here’s the actuator with the cutout for the bottom of the slider carrier:

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Removed, you can see the typical ball bearing blocking mechanism:

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It also has a hole in it:

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With the actuator removed, the ball bearings can come out:

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Inside the lock it’s a little greased up, not looking bad at all to be honest:

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All the parts laid out:

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The washer on the far left, second row sits on top of the actuator and goes between the actuator and outermost shell piece. Also the black metal spring (to the left of the inner carrier and to the right of the last slider) fits between the lock body and outer shell to provide tension.

Another shot after cleaning all pieces and body with WD-40. Honestly it was all already pretty clean and the black/brown stains on the sliders and parts is mostly just rust or damage:

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Time to reassemble! First lube up and add ball bearings:

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Then drop in the actuator. It only slots into the body one way so first we need to put it in like this:

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And then rotate it like so:

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To the correct position.
Now to re-assemble the carrier parts:

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Little golf-tee thingy into the inner carrier, which in turn fits into the outer shell with the cutout in the inner and outer carriers lining up for the sidebar:

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Add the sidebar:

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(I lubed it a little to keep it in place). Now, to put it back into the body – notice the rounded ridge on one side of the outer shell:

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That needs to line up with the rounded cutout in the body, as you can see in the pic.
Around the same time you’ll also need to reinsert that black spring, like so:

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Then start adding the sliders back in, in reverse order:

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Until the chamber is full:

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Pop the profile disk back on, with the jutting-out edge facing towards the bottom of the lock and the right-hand notch sitting against the right-hand nub in the shell:

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Then simply pop on the bottom plate, unlock the BBs with the key and pop the screws back in:

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Bottom of the lock:

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All done and re-assembled!

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In terms of tagging, I decided to go with Red (Chubb) because whilst it’s not technically a Chubb version of the AVA as far as I can tell, I don’t currently have a category for Miracle Lock (my other one is under Ingersoll), Sub Liquidonics or AVA so Chubb is the best fit without making a special colour tag just for this one (or putting it under “special locks”).

I’ve had a read through of Graham Pulford’s section of the AVA and honestly despite reading that and seeing the mechanism in action I’m still a little lost – probably doesn’t help that this lock seems to have a lot more parts and a different mechanism than Chubb’s AVA. Not many other guides out there either so I’ll endeavour to take a more detailed look at this some and post a new “operation” guide so as to be a little more helpful and comprehensive. In the meantime, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the lock pics!
<<

LocksportSouth

User avatar

Active Member

Posts: 369

Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:51 pm

Location: UK

Post Thu Sep 01, 2016 8:10 am

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

Today I have something familiar yet different to show you!

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A Chubb Padlock Padlock! My favourite kind of padlock. Twice the padlock per padlock for your money.

Ok, enough of that. :D.

The box is in excellent condition considering the (probable) age (Remember, Chubb is no more – it’s Union now):

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Spoiler alert:

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Yep, it’s another Hercules. This one is the 1K57C rather than the 1K57A AVA – this one is a standard 6-pin cylinder. The cylinder design is quite different.

Open the box:

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We can see the standard 6-pin Chubb keys at the top. Condition looks good! I’m assured that this lock has never been used, so it’s NOS as the term goes.

It even comes with the original instructions:

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Let’s take a look at them:

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Apparently there’s a Biaxial version, mine is just the standard 6 pin though.

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I love exploded diagrams more than is reasonable or healthy. Awesomesauce.
As you can probably tell from the diagram already, the 1K57C CAN be disassembled unlike the A version. Good good!

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Image

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Next goal – get the Biaxial version!

Let’s take a look at the key:

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Nice bitting:

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And onto the lock!

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The keyway plate is quite different – flat rather than recessed with an offset keyway:

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For reference, here’s the AVA version:

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The back / underside is basically identical though, as is the cylinder retention screw:

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The lock operates like basically any other normal pin tumblr, and the mechanism like any other Hercules. Insert key:

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Turn, and pull:

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The cutout is deep but tight and limiting; finding a suitable staple-on-plate to fit the last one to was a challenge!

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I forsee more angle-grinding ahead, damn.

Disassembly time! First, remove the retention screw:

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The cylinder comprises all of the functionality of the lock. The rest of the body is just a well-sculpted hunk of steel:

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With the screw removed (which sits in a slot in the cylinder outer body, catching at the end to prevent removal), the cylinder unit slips out:

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Notice a difference from the AVA? Here’s a hint:

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Yep, the 6-pin version is in two parts! It also has only two ball bearings rather than the 2+1 smaller one in the AVA:

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Here they are. Lubed with that nasty yellow stuff I keep finding in ‘new’-ish locks. Sticky balls!

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Here’s the AVA lock with a smaller rear BB:

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With the BBs removed and the key in the unlocked position, you can see the cam inside the cylinder housing with the “free” slot exposed:

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With the key removed, you can see it closed:

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And here’s our ticket in!

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On the “shackle” end of the cylinder there are two hex bolts holding the two pieces together. I never photo’d it apparently, but this same end in the AVA version is completely smooth.

So, pop out the bolts (longer than I was expecting!):

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Body starts to come apart:

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On one side (the keyway side, you can see the back of the cylinder and a small cam:

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On the other side, a large cam/actuator:

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Here’s the large part (Chubb calls this the Primary Cam, but I’m of the belief it’s also an actuator since it restricts the locking balls):

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Inside the rear part of the cylinder with the cam removed:

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Here were can see the large outer cylinder with the lock cylinder sitting inside. It seems to be some kind of smowman cylinder? It’s not an Oval or Euro, that’s for sure:

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Here’s the small cam (Chubb terminology: Secondary Cam) removed from the back of the cylinder:

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The cutout side interfaces with the large nub on the primary cam where as the nub side:

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Sits in the back of the cylinder:

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The cylinder slides easily out of the outer cylinder part with no special actions needed:

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Aside from the locking cylinder, the outer part is hollow inside – note the screw points to connect the other cylinder half:

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The locking cylinder has an interesting half-moon cutout and a divot near the front, not sure what that’s for as it doesn’t seem to have any application inside the bible or outside in the outer cylinder:

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The front has the usual plug and bible sections, just.. Round, rather than oblong or Euro-shaped:

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Along with that half-moon cutout and divots (maybe some kind of anti-drill pins?) there’s a long rod which I assume is where the driver pins are fitted:

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The C-clip is some kind of special weirdo-version which was an absolute pain in the ass to remove:

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It’s super springy and doesn’t bend at all! Took quite some time with a C-clip remover and two pairs of pliers to get that off. Surprised it ever went back on tbh!

Stripping the cylinder is the usual affair, though I did accidentally start pulling the plug out at an angle where a cutout in the body allowed two drivers to escape, and in the confusion I jammed the plug back, bending two springs :/.

Plug removed:

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The pins alternate brass-steel-brass-steel. Not sure whether for aesthetic or sensible reasons.

The ends of the pins are also tapered, I assume for anti-picking protection. The key pin cutout holes are also much wider at the top resulting in a strange look:

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Not sure if that improves the pick resistance though!

Pins stripped, you can just about see the bevel on the top of the pin holes:

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All the drivers and key pins:

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Note the driver metal matches the key pin for that stack (brass or steel), with the brass drivers being spools and the others being standard driver pins, except with a slight bevel on one edge. The keypins, as previously mentioned, also have a bevel on the back edge as well as the usual key pin end shape. No other alterations that I can see.

The two left springs:

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Are the ones I squashed when trying to stop the escaping drivers. Oops!

All the parts laid out:

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And after cleaning:

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Just a bit of a scrub off with some WD-40 in this case. Since it’s basically new, it wasn’t really that dirty – just wanted to get off Chubb’s yellow gunk and put some of my own on instead!

A closer look at those bevelled pins:

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Reassembling the cylinder:

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I put the two bent springs in upside-down and they work fine! I also used a bit of Tri-Flow to lube up the cylinder rather whatever they were using (if anything).

C-Clip and cam back in place:

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Back in the outer cylinder:

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I forgot to photo, but I lubed up the primary cam with lithium grease paste as usual. Then, after a bit of confusion (I’d put the primary cam back in round the wrong way and the key refused to turn when assembled!), re-assembled and screwed back together:

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Lube the BBs, insert the key and turn to allow them to slip into the outer cylinder body, and back in she goes!

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Unlocked:

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Well, that was fun! Good to see a different kind of Hercules assembly. Thanks for reading along!
<<

Riyame

Keeper of the Bests / Supreme Overlord of Small Format Interchangeable Picking Nightmares

Posts: 2164

Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2011 11:16 am

Location: Canada

Post Thu Sep 01, 2016 9:12 am

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

Very interesting with the new Herculese.

More info on the Miracle locks. They started out using Ingersoll cores but they stopped paying the bills so Ingersoll stopped selling them locks. So Miracle Lock started using their own AVA system.

I did a breakdown on one years ago and made videos of what a correct and incorrect key looks like when used.

You can see that as you turn it, the wafers/discs hit the side and then the key starts to act on them and pull them to the positions dictated by the biting. With the wrong key it will force the wafers out farther past the shearline.

I believe the center "golf tee" thing prevents drilling and tensioning and acts as a bearing to keep it centered. If you externally tension it then I think the sidebar will bite down and stop the discs from moving.

Here is the right key being used.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCX62W4dgl0


And the wrong key
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5k2-Yd_v_lU
PhoneMan: I always knew I'd say something stupid and it would be someone's sig
macgng: i am an equal opportunity pervert
macgng: aww fuck thats goin in someone sig :-(

If life gives you melons, you might be dyslexic.
<<

LocksportSouth

User avatar

Active Member

Posts: 369

Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:51 pm

Location: UK

Post Thu Sep 01, 2016 10:56 am

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

Ahh, thank you! Seems like the operation is more-or-less what I thought so that's good, also it's good to get some info on the golf tee thingy and the stuff on tensioning, very interesting! Thanks for the info :).
<<

LocksportSouth

User avatar

Active Member

Posts: 369

Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2015 6:51 pm

Location: UK

Post Sat Sep 03, 2016 7:26 am

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

One final update for now – another lovely cutaway by L0ckcr4ck3r!

First up we have an important warning notice:

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Sage advice! I won’t be disassembling this one for fear of damaging something but I will be keeping my eyes out to get a regular lock of this type so that I can disassemble it and see the inner workings in a more detailed way!

Here’s the key & tag:

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I love the engraved key tags! Let’s take a closer look:

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Very snazzy!
Lock box:

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And all the parts laid out:

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The cutaway is of a G55P, which according to Mul-T-Lock is a medium security lock from their now-discontinued G series of lock. With the G and E series both being discontinued maybe I should make MTL my next series of locks to collect – before you can’t find them anymore!

Along with the lock and original box, there are two keys, key tag, code card and a small pack of colour identifier plugs. Let’s take a look at those:

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As you can probably tell, these slot into the little square cutout on the key to give it an easily-identifiable colour code, like so:

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Let’s take a look at the key bitting:

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Looks to be 5 pin-in-pin dimple pins, a laser track and an interactive element at the front. MTL aren’t messing around! Let’s take a look at the lock itself now:

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Looks awesome even in the packaging! Here’s the back:

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Closer look at the cutout:

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Bottom of the lock:

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Seems that the cylinders used are basic 1/2 Euros. And now the front:

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Close-up of the cylinder cut-out and pins:

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Very nice finish and details on the cutaway and also the bevelled edges, always appreciated! In the previous photo the key is fully inserted and the pins aligned correctly. Here’s half a turn:

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And unlocked:

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With shackle open:

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Rear side with the lock locked:

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Half open:

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And unlocked:

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I’ve spent some time locking and unlocking to watch the mechanism in action and I have a rough idea how it works – if and when I can get hold of a non-cutaway version I’ll do a full breakdown. As always, this lock is another excellent piece of work by L0ckcr4ck3r and I look forward to adding it to my cutaway display collection!

Thanks for reading :).
<<

Neilau

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Active Member

Posts: 740

Joined: Tue May 14, 2013 10:29 pm

Location: Australia

Post Sat Sep 03, 2016 5:49 pm

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

I'll give my age away here -- FAR OUT !!!!! :mrgreen:

Beautiful Photos and explanation.

Thank you for sharing them with us.
Clark's Law (Arthur C)

For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.
<<

GWiens2001

User avatar

Lock-Goblin-Gordon
Lock-Goblin-Gordon

Posts: 3795

Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2012 9:05 pm

Location: Arizona, United States

Post Sun Sep 04, 2016 5:45 pm

Re: LocksportSouth's Stash

Neilau wrote:I'll give my age away here -- FAR OUT !!!!! :mrgreen:



So you are a kid!

Gordon
Just when you think you've learned it all, that is when you find you haven't learned anything yet.
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