Ipswich Locksmith News – March 2015

Nottingham Locksmith Expo

Last weekend I went to the Annual Locksmith Expo in Nottingham and really enjoyed my time there. It was run over 2 days. It is the annual exhibition for UK Locksmiths and is a trade expo and conference.

There are also demonstrations of locksmith tools and training taking place on the first day. Many large lock and safe companies have exhibits and so it’s a useful event to attend to network and learn about the new advances in lock technology.

I didn’t take any photos as I didn’t want to appear like a tourist but I demoed some of the tools that Outside In Tools supply. A thoroughly enjoyable two days and it was great to put some names to the faces I deal with in my trade. Here is the expo site if you are interested: http://lockexpo.co.uk/

3 Lever Deadlock

This week I had a call-out to visit a customer who had lost the keys to his bedroom. The bunch also had the keys for his front and back door, the keys for four sheds and their padlocks. He was desperate for access to the sheds.
So we agreed for a quick fix to saw the padlocks off as they were the small and cheap varieties you find on eBay or in local pound shops. I also non-destructively unlocked the 3 Lever Deadlock on his bedroom door. He was happy so I was happy. Here is an image of the locksmith work in progress:

Stowmarket Charity Shop Lock Repair

On Monday I visited a Charity Shop in Stowmarket. The customer had told me the key was very loose in the lock. I stripped the lock and replaced the curtain and it was working as a brand new lock again. If you have good locks like the Chubb 110 or Chubb 114 don’t have them replaced. They are great locks and built to last for years so it’s better to get the spares for them and give them a good service. This is often cheaper than replacing an old lock for a new lock, which may be inferior anyway.

Locked out of a Vauxhall Corsa

On Monday afternoon I visited Staples near the fire station on Princes Street in Ipswich. I was not after a new ream of A4, but had to attend to a customer who had managed to lock themselves out of their 03 plate Vauxhall Corsa. It was a lovely shade of electric blue, a very nice colour.

Anyway this lock caused me a few problems because after 12 years of use the car door lock had become very worn and loose. As the owner’s key fob had broken many years ago and they had not replaced it, they had been using the door lock to get in and out of the car. Now car door locks are not known for their ability to handle abuse and are really meant for occasional unlocking only, so as you can imagine after 10 years or so of having a key going in and out of this particular one, it was pretty much a tunnel rather than a lock.

Due to this the lock was not giving much feedback so I could not tell what the internals of the lock were doing as I tried to defeat it. In the end though, after about 25 minutes of work, I managed to get in without damaging the lock and the car owner was extremely happy. I recommended they should change their car door locks as soon as possible, as they were very worn.

French Door Locks prevent house owner leaving for work

On Tuesday morning I had to go and visit a customer on an urgent call out at 7:30am as they could not lock their French Doors and had to get going to work.

This is a very strange one so read on. Anyway I arrived to find the customer had a truly massive but friendly dog. The poor dog had a bandage wrapped around its front paw. Walking past the dog, which although was lovely and friendly, was also a bit intimidating due to its immense size, I started to inspect the locks on the French Doors.

Strange but they seemed to be in good working order. So I did some more investigation and found that one of the dog’s claws had become wedged into one of the keeps (which was not visible) and that was why the door was failing to shut and lock properly. I removed the dog’s claw and the French Doors worked properly again. I do hope the poor dog has recovered now.

Young Baby locked out of Ford C-Max

On Tuesday afternoon at around 17:30, I got an extremely distressed young lady telephoning me as she had accidentally locked herself out of her Ford C-Max in a supermarket car-park. This was particularly urgent as her baby was inside the car. I arrived within 20 minutes and after reassuring and calming her down, set about picking the lock. As I was doing this the internal sensors set the car alarm off and woke the baby up. The little man starting crying as loudly as his lungs would let him and the pressure on the job went up by 1000%. Within 15 minutes of my arrival I had opened the car and all was well in the world again. Made me sweat a bit this one I can tell you. The Lady was so pleased she left me a lovely review on Checkatrade.

Smudge – A great guy

I just want to end this post by shouting out a big thank you to Smudge, a fellow Auto Locksmith who runs these two websites: http://www.autolocksmith.info/ and http://www.lostcarkeys.us/

He is a great guy and has helped me out a few times with advice and supplies. If you are in his region he is a great locksmith to deal with.