Homemade Lock Repair in Downtown Cincinnati, OH 45202

5/5 - (1 vote)

Company Name: Eagle’s Locksmith Cincinnati

Service Location: Cincinnati, OH – Downtown, 45202

Today, a restaurant owner called Eagle’s Locksmith Cincinnati for professional locksmith service in downtown Cincinnati to change several locks as quickly as possible. I arrived within an hour, and the customer showed me nine locks that needed repair – six stainless steel locks and one file cabinet lock. At first, all the locks appeared to be standard models that I could easily find at any local hardware store. However, once I disassembled them, I realized they were actually homemade locks.

In many cases, business owners or builders create their own lock combinations to make them unique. Also, to ensure that only a specific commercial locksmith for business can service them in the future. This often makes it challenging for other locksmiths to understand how the locks were built or how to properly repair or rekey them. Thanks to years of experience, Eagle’s Locksmith Cincinnati was able to identify the issue and provide the right solution to get all the locks working smoothly again.

This is how the stainless steel lock ring looks like after I took it off the box.

You can find this type of lock on mail boxes, but with the combination here is more difficult to take it off the ring.

Locksmith Project: Repairing and Rekeying Custom Stainless Steel Locks in Downtown Cincinnati

The six stainless steel locks turned out to be custom mailbox-style locks attached to metal boxes with rivets. I began by drilling out the rivets to remove the locks, and once they were off, I noticed that a previous technician had welded the rings behind them to keep everything stable. At that point, I had two options – buy a welding machine and do it myself or take the locks to a professional welder. I decided to visit a welder in Blue Ash, OH, to ensure the work was done properly and safely.

While the welder was working on the locks, I went back to the restaurant in downtown Cincinnati to continue the project. I rekeyed the remaining nine locks to the same key, providing the customer with ten extra duplicate keys for convenience. After about three hours, I returned to the welder to pick up the repaired locks and headed back to the restaurant to finish the job.

Using a pop rivet gun with 1/8″ blind rivets, I reattached the lock rings securely to the stainless-steel boxes. Once everything was mounted back inside the bar area, I fine-tuned each lock’s tailpiece to make sure they were perfectly straight and working smoothly.

In the end, the customer was very happy to have all the locks functioning like new again. It was another successful project completed by Eagle’s Locksmith Cincinnati, showing how professional locksmith experience and attention to detail can make a big difference – especially when dealing with custom-made or modified locks.

I used a pop rivet gun to attach the lock back on the stainless steel box.

One of the reasons that the tail wasn’t smooth is because of this gap between the ring and the tail. The welder also needed to put it back in place.

This job was very interesting for me, because not every day I redo a homemade locks. All of my work was successfully completed in about 8 hours and that is including my rides to the welder an my supplier. I believe that almost any locksmith in Cincinnati can do work like that, but it’s just take more time to figure out what was the builder did and what was the purpose for that. The client was very grateful for the time I spent to finish the job on the same day.