euro profile cylinders in USA

It is our local term for the type of machines as at Las Vegas. In the past the two main places for these machines were Las Vegas and New South Wales state in Australia.

I thought it might be a variant of poker.

It is. Probably because some of the 'games' use pictures of playing cards instead of the traditional fruits ('fruit machines'). Personally I prefer the term 'one armed bandit', but the big handle that used to be on the side is a thing of the past.

In case the springs grow weak. Pin stacks at top, gravity helps the tumblers to settle.

Not in all cases. Yesterday I was working on a house that had all Emtek locks. Real total junk. One, the springs were too short, and the cylinder was undependable. Actually, I probably oughta replaced the springs on the other locks,t oo.

With bible at bottom, any one spring fails, and the lock doesn't function.

really applies to ANY brand mounted springs down..

had a Kwikset once- they had the key, but could not get it in the lock.. freezing rain on a north exposure left it filled with ice.. propane torch, vice grips and 5 minutes with a little heat and stick in, got it melted out.. disassembled and dumped the water out of the knob.. reinserted right side up and all was well..

--Shiva--

But this is how it should be. The lock fails and tells this way that it needs to be repaired or replaced :-) Otherwise it may work sometimes, and sometimes not, what can be a much more frustrating situation than a complete failure...

Ralph,

I agree that locks that have failed should be repaired or replaced. The issue is if having the pins in the upper part of the keyway or the lower part of the keyway is preferable for any reason.

I am of the opinion that they should be in the upper part of the keyway for optimal function.

There are several reasons for this. First is any crud that gets into the keyway will tend to fall down and then be pushed harmlessly to the rear of the keyway. If the pins are in the lower section of the keyway then any crud has the opportunity to wedge itself in between the pins and the holes where they reside. This could cause a failure by one of two ways. Either the forign matter is very fine and makes it all the way past the pins and takes up space that the driver pin will need to function or it if it is larger, then it could wedge itself between the pin and the hole and prevent the spring forcing the pin against the key and causing a failure.

So tell me, what do you percieve as the advantages for having the pins down?

I really have never had this case, even among cylinders of 30 or 40 years, heavy usage, outside doors. They were worn, the keyhole double the size as it should be (one could think, the frontmost pin fells out of it when removing the lock), but when they failed, it was just due to poor maintenance or excessive wear, not dirt around the springs, not broken springs.

I do not see really advantages, but at least in our area (no desert, modearte climate, no excessive humidity, not so strong winters) also no remarkable disadvantages. And just from being used to it over dozens of years, it really troubles older people when they have to use locks with the pins on the upper side, or dimple key locks with horizontal keyhole. So I can not see any reason to change this german habit :-)

I get Schlage here that quit in 3 weeks in winter, springs on the TOP.. due to humidity/rain --Shiva--

Yep :)

I often drive out to remote antenna sites, up on hills, and even with

1m of snow around the gates, a harsh wind and temperatures well below freezing point the "el cheapo" Iseo euro profile cylinders make no problems at all. The worst case has been that I had to use the car lock defroster spray and wait one minute, then the look opened just as it was summer :) The more expensive DOM cylinders never ever caused me any trouble to unlock them, also the Zeiss Ikon and Keso 2000 work just fine.

I am replacing a profile cylinder this morning on a door that has a three point latching system. They are available in a variety of keyway's from most major locksmith distributors. John Middleman, CRL.

had a guy call one time, the latch wasn't working on his french door- the 3 point one..

turned out he WAS correct.. he had termites and the whole underneath the door was rotted away and falling down.

I believe he said later it was $7,000 to fix the damage..

--Shiva--