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During my recent holidays in Sri Lanka I had the pleasure to see many locks, so I took some pictures for you.
I also bought three padlocks to bring home with me. The key in the picture doesn't work, but I got it nonetheless. I'm planning to make keys for all of them.

Cheers

EDIT: I added a few pictures to the album.

Nice finds. I really like that big one on the right. Nav Tal I think that is from Israel

Nice finds. And thanks for all the photos!!

I love the "hand" handles on that IRONSAFE.

Nice finds.

Curious is that an American Yale or a Canadian Yale.. I can't tell as I'm on my phone.

Thanks guys, I like these padlocks very much and enjoyed all the locks and safes I saw there.

Papa Gleb, that padlock is from Godrej, an Indian manufacturer.

Doogs, I don't know where the padlock was made. On the shackle there's "YALE & TOWNE NFC. CO".

Cheers

So I picked the 8 lever padlock by putting pressure to the bolt with a bristle and lifting the levers with a shaved down key. I suspect there aren't 8 levers inside it because I only felt 3 or 4.







Here are better pictures of the YALE.

Cheers

Since I hadn't a reasonably sized piece of brass handy, I salvaged an old broken cabinet hinge and filed it down until it was flat. Then I inserted it in the keyway and filed down the tip to fit in the hole at the end of the keyway. Then smoked it with a candle to better see the marks and found three wards. I filed the three positions a little, cleaned the blank and took the first picture. The bottom part of the picture shows the marks I got while refining these three wards cuts.
I repeated the process a few times until I got what I think it's a proper key blank. It enters the keyway, turns almost 90 degrees and allows me to feel the actuator springiness. As you can see from the second pictures, the levers leave marks on their positions. I've circled those in red on both sides of the blank.

Before I go on I think I'll copy this blank to another brass rod just in case I screw up. I hope to find one hour to finish this first prototype key during the weekend.

Cheers

Lookin' good!

I've not seen one with a keyway that large (not that I've seen that many).
But normally the keyway is a rather thin straight slot, or it's slightly oval
in the middle... but not as much as the one you have there.
Maybe Lauren will chime in. I'm sure he's seen many.

I copied the blank on a piece of steel and shaved away the sides. Used it as a tensor and picked the levers. Now the padlock is open. I think I can fit the key better this way, because the levers are locked in their correct position.
Next step: carefully file the brass blank.

Oldfast, I'm surprised too by the keyway shape. Maybe somebody removed a cover or a ward plate. Dunno.

Cheers

No, the keyway is correct. There are even blanks listed for it in the ILCO catalog.

Gordon

I failed at impressioning the key. Twice.

The first time I filed the blank to fit the picked lock. I reached the point where I got no more marks and the key turned 180 degrees. I thought the key was ready, locked the padlock and tried to open it with the key, but unfortunately it didn't work.

I thought I filed down too much, so I filled the bittings with solder and tried to impression the closed lock.
I failed again. I think I'll either disassemble the lock by removing the rivets, or I leave it without a key.

And now the good news: after all this practice I can pick it in seconds.

Thanks for the info Gordon. I may end up buying a couple blanks...

Cheers

Too bad that the keyway cover is missing. This is the sort of lock that you may wish to disassemble for your own interests. With the lock open you can punch out the two retaining pins.

Thanks Lauren, I saw the info about the two rivers here on the forum. I was a bit worried to ruin the padlock, but followed your suggestion and did it...

I'm very happy I disassembled the padlock. Now I have a working key. During my previous attempts I impressioned correctly the first and fourth levers, but filed the second and third too much.
I started over with the last piece of brass I had, and filed carefully.
One thing I noticed is that the uncut side of the blank interfere with the lever positions. I suspect I screw up the previous attempts because of this.

I took many pictures and will make a topic dedicated to this beautiful padlock. For now here is a picture of the working key, it's the first one.
I noticed there is the number 858 punched inside the lock. Dunno if it's the model number or if it's the bittings code.

Cheers

You've learned a great deal from working with this one. Thanks for sharing your struggles and success!

And can't wait to see this. I'd LOVE to see the insides. I still have a very difficult time picking these.