Imagine you move into a new house, but within days, one of your front door locks starts to misbehave quite badly. Logically, you go ahead and call a locksmith in Newcastle to help you out. Or in this case, you call several. Indeed, upon seeing a picture of the lock in question, another locksmith replied “I’m sorry, I don’t work with these locks.”
While there is nothing wrong with not being able to cover everything, what happened here was the lock in question has a bit of a reputation, so most locksmiths decide it’s just better not to deal with them. Certainly not a lock any Emergency Locksmith from Newcastle would want to tackle unprepared, as dealing with one of them without a clear plan can mean an absolute disaster for the lock, the door and the customer.
The lock in question? The mighty Chubb 3G110. Moreover, this particular one had been manufactured in 1986, which makes it older than me!
Without going into details, this lock’s internal design makes it the hardest common mortice lock in the UK market to pick without dedicated tools.
With that said, what actually was the job? Simple: we needed a new lock. Or did we? A whole new lock and keys was certainly an option, but it was also the most expensive one. These locks retail at about £150 new, and come with only two keys as a standard.
In order to complete the job while saving this customer’s money, I suggested refurbishing the insides and changing the lever pack in order to have the old keys not work anymore, along with its curtain. I could also make up three working keys from his existing ones – now that sounds like a good deal. The customer accepted and the job was completed on the spot.
Rekeying locks is certainly a useful skill to have for locksmiths in Newcastle, as it provides cheaper alternatives for customers when working with expensive locks.
If you need lock repair in Newcastle or a change of locks, call AD Locksmithing on 07865 367298.
Published: 25th September, 2023 | Updated: 9th February, 2024