 A short summary of door locks, and the different types of locks currently available on the market. Of course Trade Locks can supply any of these on our main website at www.tradelocks.co.uk, however if you can’t see a specific type of lock give one our helpful and knowledgeable staff a call or drop them an email where they will be a happy to assist you.
As you may or may not be aware locks can be mechanical, electromechanical or now in some cases and combination of both technologies. Most common forms of door locks are operated by turning some form of removable key.
Door locks can take the form of;
- Cam lock
- Safety lock
- Combination lock
- Cruciform (or Zeiss) lock
- Cylinder lock
- Deadbolt
- Disc tumbler lock
- Electronic lock
- Electric strike
- Magnetic lock
- Keycard lock
- Lever tumbler lock
- Chubb detector lock
- Magnetic keyed lock
- Padlock
- Pin tumbler lock
- Rim lock
- Tubular pin tumbler lock
- Time lock
- Turner lock
- Wafer tumbler lock
- Warded lock
- Security door locks
However one of the more common types of door locks found through the UK and Europe are cylinders locks. A cylinder lock is a lock constructed with a cylinder that a locksmith can easily unscrew should the key need replacing in the door, a lot of conservatory doors an UPVC doors use cylinder locks. The cylinder may contain any of a variety of locking mechanisms, including the pin tumbler lock, the wafer tumbler lock and the disc tumbler lock.
The first main advantage to a cylinder lock is that the cylinder may be changed without altering the locking mechanism of the door.
Standardised types of cylinder include key-in-knobset cylinders, rim (also known as nightlatch) cylinders, Ingersoll format cylinders, American, and Scandinavian round mortise cylinders, and Scandinavian oval cylinders. There are also standardised cross-sectional profiles for lock cylinders that may vary in length - for example to suit different door thicknesses. These profiles include the europrofile (or DIN standard), the British oval profile and the Swiss profile.
However like almost all types of locks cylinder door locks can be susceptible to Lockbumping, a method of entry to cylinder door locks that don’t require the actual key. The Lockbumping method is very simple an adapted (similar type) key is used, placed in a cylinder lock pulled back 1 notch or click, this is then struck firmly with a reasonably heavy object such as a small hammer or screw driver or even a purpose made hammer that can be purchased from many sites on the internet.
Further information on Lockbumping and a good method that may prevent this on cylinder door locks can be found at www.pickbuster.co.uk
Source References: wikipedia.org |
