Yale desk lock - looking to make/find a key for it

Tinkerer

Hi everyone! I’m new to the forum, so be gentle. 🙁happy):

I have a Yale desk lock, but no key. I’m looking for a way to find out the key profile w/o breaking into the case. The lock is a low-cost stamped brass lock from the 1920’s (?) that is swaged together. I suspect the key is flat. The only external mark is “yale” and “1 W 8” on the backing plate.

Anyone know of a way to find the key profile?

What a nice website BTW!

Thanks!

Don

Pschiffe

Tinkerer wrote
Hi everyone! I’m new to the forum, so be gentle. 🙁happy):

I have a Yale desk lock, but no key. I’m looking for a way to find out the key profile w/o breaking into the case. The lock is a low-cost stamped brass lock from the 1920’s (?) that is swaged together. I suspect the key is flat. The only external mark is “yale” and “1 W 8” on the backing plate. Anyone know of a way to find the key profile?What a nice website BTW! Thanks!
Don

Looks like the old Yale R295C drawer lock which used their R295 flat steel blank. Long obsolete but just a matter of finding a generic blank of the correct width and thickness. The R295 was 1″ long x .042″ thick x .265″ wide. The Ilco 1225PL is pretty close at .040″ thick x .265″ wide. There are some on eBay see link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ilco-Blank-Keys-Yale-1225PL-Steel-pkg-of-5-/201229398249?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2eda34f0e9

Pete Schifferli

[unknown]

Tinkerer

Thanks Pete,

The exact information I was looking for. I snagged the blanks on ebay. Now, I’ll have to figure out the key profile. I read some methods of doing this with bluing and a bit of impression work. Fortunately it’s a simple key, so I should be able to figure it out.

Thanks again for the quick response!

Cheers!

Don

Pschiffe

Tinkerer wrote
Thanks Pete,
The exact information I was looking for. I snagged the blanks on ebay. Now, I’ll have to figure out the key profile. I read some methods of doing this with bluing and a bit of impression work. Fortunately it’s a simple key, so I should be able to figure it out.Thanks again for the quick response!
Cheers!Don

Hi Don, the thumbnail shows an apparent image of your lock from Yale Catalog No. 26 ©1929. This will give you an idea of what the key might look like, since there are only 12 changes, it likely only has two lever tumblers.

Pete Schifferli

[unknown]

Richard Phillips

The cover of the lockcase, although rivetted, is not difficult to remove and replace. The catalogue shows the face of the trunnnon as concave, the photo appears to be flat.

This catalog entry is intriguing. It offers 12 differs as regular, but 7770 maximum possible - from 2 levers! Even offers 1200 mastered. No wonder there is extra cost for the non-regular differs; how are they obtained (assuming still made with 2 levers)?

Pschiffe

chubbbramah wrote
The cover of the lockcase, although rivetted, is not difficult to remove and replace. The catalogue shows the face of the trunnnon as concave, the photo appears to be flat.

This catalog entry is intriguing. It offers 12 differs as regular, but 7770 maximum possible - from 2 levers! Even offers 1200 mastered. No wonder there is extra cost for the non-regular differs; how are they obtained (assuming still made with 2 levers)?

I’m guessing that they probably needed as many as five lever tumblers to achieve that number of changes. Presumably those tumblers would have been made thinner to fit within the same lock case so that five could occupy the space taken by only two. My two cents.

Pete Schifferli

[unknown]