Lock Restoration (Before & After)

Personally i love coming accross old rusted, beat up locks and then cleaning them up all new and shiny, if it's re-keyable i'll also give the core a good once over and put some fresh pins and spings into it so i have a pretty decent working lock with key. The aim of this thread is to see what locks you may have come accross and cleaned up, if you have a before and after shot that would be great but if not just the after shot would be appreciated, i know quite a few of you on here (off the top of my head "awol70") like to clean up old locks, i for one will be veryt intrested in seeing your best efforts. Also it would be great if you told us how you cleaned the lock e.g what cleaning substances did you use and anything really you feel will benefit the members off the board on the subject of Lock restoration.

Lew

Here's one to start off.

Abus 65/50.

It was in one hell of a state. Completely rusted over, Keyway jammed solid, Shackle jammed solid. I got it home and left it soke in some WD-40 to loosen all the parts up a bit. After that i let it soke in Cilit bang to remove all the limescale and loosen up the the rust. i then used glass paper to take off most of the rust. i have a little bit of work left to do on the shackle but it's coming up nicely. As you can tell it's verry beat up.

This is the good and not so beat up side

P1010014.JPG

The Beat up side

P1010013.JPG

Close up of the damage

P1010015.JPG

[HallisChalmers]

Nice work. Are you going to go into more polishing of the lock - such as polishing with a wire wheel - or just use a good brass polish to brighten it up slightly?

Nice work. Are you going to go into more polishing of the lock - such as polishing with a wire wheel - or just use a good brass polish to brighten it up slightly?

acctually only last week i got a new shackle and core for this lock and yes i run a wire whell over it. i'll fire off some pics in the week.

Lew

[Houndour]

This is a cool thread. Restoring locks sounds like something I'd do if I had the time. Sounds very relaxing and rewarding.

[USApicker]

i got two.

I restored a master pro series 6621. the outside was in pretty good condition anyway, so i just rinsed it off. next, i bumped it and took out the core. the pins had ruts cut into them from lots of use. i replaced the springs and pins. i had like 9 keys leftover from the front door of my old house, they were for the sc1 keyway which was the keyway of the 6621.
i keyed this padlock so that my 9 keys are the working keys. i rinsed out the entire insides with silicone spray, and put it back together.

the second one was on an old corbin padlock from a flea market. when i got it, the outside was corroded.possibly from acid rain. also, the lock wouldnt even lock, the shackle hole was filled with what looked like grease and dirt/rust dust.to fix it, i user the end of a 1/8 file to scrape out the goo from the shackle hole.then, i filled the shackle hole with wd-40 and shot it with compressed air. all of the wd sprayed out of the shackle hole.(cool trick i figured out) . now the lock would lock. i buffed it with toothpaste and a paper towel. than i rinsed off the sticky residue.





i gotta say, this is one of my favorite threads out of every lockpicking forum i've ever seen.



EDIT: i meant to say that if you fill the shackle hole with wd-40 and shoot it with compressed air it shoots OUT THE KEYHOLE.

[USApicker]

lockylew: how do you replace the core and shackle in a non-rekeyable lock ? my educated guess based on information from ezpicking.com is that you would have to drill out the retaining pin?

lockylew: how do you replace the core and shackle in a non-rekeyable lock ? my educated guess based on information from ezpicking.com is that you would have to drill out the retaining pin?

that would be exactly right, in this lock the pin was already missing when i found it so i had an easy job

Lew

[kizza8484]

Recently took a dremel and some polishing compound to this second hand schlage i've fallen in love with. Got it off ebay, not in too bad shape but very well used. Was just bown away by how well made the lock was and thought it deserved to shine again. No before pictures unfortunately.

The pins came up very nicely. Has anyone tried holding a pin while trying to polish it with a dremel? Freakin things were flying around everywhere.


The spring on the left is one of the originals. Replaced them with some new ones from my Lockwood pinning kit.


Oooh shiney!



And all back together again:


Haven't tried picking it again yet. But those new springs can definately be felt through the key.

[HallisChalmers]

Has anyone tried holding a pin while trying to polish it with a dremel?

Why not use a brass tumbler/polisher? Shooters use them to clean up their brass pistol & rifle cartridges for reloading - so I would think that you could use one to polish lock housings and springs.

[kizza8484]

haha! Sure does, usmcboltaction.

That poslisher thing looks pretty cool. What would that set you back?

[HallisChalmers]

That poslisher thing looks pretty cool. What would that set you back?

Low cost home-built: http://www.speedsoft.com/theashes/tumbler/directions.html

You can buy a basic one for about $50: http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/common/search/search-results1.jsp?QueryText=brass+tumbler&N=4887&Ntk=Products&Ntx=mode+matchall&Nty=1&Ntt=brass+tumbler&noImage=0

Then you have to figure the cost of polishing media: walnut, corn husk, polishing sand, etc. depending on the finish you want.

Of course this would be great for lock bodies with removable cores. If you dump a regular padlock or fully assembled cylinder in a tumbler- you'll clog up the pins and springs with the media.

You may be able to tape off the keyway and shackle area to keep all the polishing grit out of the innards of the padlock.

[Josh]

nice job on that kizza

[kizza8484]

aahh i see. What would be really good is something thats effective at polishing the pin chambers. Some kind of pipe-cleaner dremel attachment sort of thing. One that doesn't just turn it into a mini whipper-snipper. I've uh...been there already. It was unpleasant.

[aarpazthelockpicker]

cool i have been looking for a good deal on a polisher like that