Skunk Lock - Beating Crooks By Making Them Sick

The Skunk Lock is an unusual product recently designed and released to market that offers a twist to typical security devices.

Instead of an alarm or electrocution element this product will spray a pepper spray type product that will incapacitate a would be thief.

The video below shows a depiction of how this operates.

Definitely unique and definitely different, this is a product that might appeal to discerning bike owners.



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Pocket Doors Or Cavity Door Repairs

We at Master Key Systems America LLC have been repairing customers existing pocket doors, across the greater St Louis region for about 8 years.

A lot of requests come from online lead generators like Home Advisor and Thumbtack and often after customers have been poorly serviced by a previous technician.

The benefits of pocket doors have been known for over a hundred years, in the United States. You will find them in  many older homes in New England, the Carolina's and the Mid-West.

Pocket doors increase the "usable" square footage of a dwelling. Effectively adding value to your property easily and inexpensively

The fellow in this video shows how to "correctly" install a modern day pocket door into an existing wall. That's not me in the video. It is only by happenstance that he sounds like me (I'm much better looking).




We are also the exclusive North American dealer of the fabulous Lockwood 7444 Keyed Pocket Door Lock. This unique, in-demand product continues to sell well, now into it's 4th year.

Whom Are You Going To Trust To Do It Right The First Time?

We posted about Locksis, recently and it looks like a solid product. We hope to test one out soon and will report our findings.

We found the following video on their site rather appropriate because often we get to repair the previous attempt at installation, in our travels as a journeyman tradesman.



Their site is in the source below.

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Meroni Nova Privacy/Bathroom Lock Installed To Communal Restroom in Local Bar

 Last week we were called to a project for a local bar/grill where the communal restroom door was a hodgepodge mess left by a previous installer.
The door in question was fitted upside down and used a D pull plate fitted to the inside with a surface barrel bolt used as the interior lock mechanism.

You can see in the first picture, the exterior door side with the old plates removed, revealed large coach-bolt holes where the old plates were fitted.

The inside D pull had been broken off and exposed bolts looked unsightly. They were using a packing box strap to pull the door open, but inspection by the local authority having jurisdiction (AHJ), required a properly operating door handle to be installed.

Picture 2 shows another angle of the pre-repaired door. The crack in the door, part way down was the result of a patron kicking the door once to get it open.

We removed the damaged plates which revealed the poor workmanship from the previous installer.

 We decided that the use of 2 Rockwood Push Plates on each side of the door would cover the holes left by the previous products.

You can see that we used 4" x 20" push plates and over lapped the bottom plate and top plate.

The cross bore hole was in the wrong position, because the door was fitted upside down.

The cover plates easily covered most of the damage, effectively improving the aesthetics, expertly. A clean look is a professional look.

Picture 4 here, shows the exterior side with the cover plates installed and the high-quality Meroni Nova N12 Privacy/Bathroom lock installed.

We were required to drill a 40mm (1-3/4") cross bore hole in the cover plates to accept the new lock. These plates are stainless steel and our hole saws were not sharp enough to easily complete the desired holes. As a consequence, we were required to lace-drill the holes in the plates.

Lace-drilling is a term coined by professional metalworkers to explain a method of making a larger hole in an application, when a larger drill bit or hole saw would not work easily. The installer will drill a series of smaller holes in the application and cut the material out to make the hole desired, larger.

Picture 4 above shows the exterior side of the door, while picture 5 here, shows the interior side of the door. The customer requested that we leave the surface barrel bolt fitted to the door.

Because the door frame was a commercial steel frame, the existing strike plate was located in a different position to the existing cross-bore hole in the existing upside-down door.

We were required to accurately allign the new lock with the existing strike plate and drill new cross-bore holes accordingly.

You can see the finished look is very professional. The new lock operates flawlessly.
The door is a high trafficked door with sometimes hundreds of daily uses, hence the decision to use high-quality hardware.

Meroni hardware is uniquely designed with very few moving parts, that reduce the typical wear of many other brands of door knob hardware, making a product that is easy to operate and very long lasting.

Below, find a small video of the completed install and the operation of this simple to use lockset.



Meroni hardware is made in Italy by a company that produce various different designs of aesthetically pleasing, simple to operate lock hardware.

Meroni also is one of the largest furniture/cabinet hardware manufacturers in Europe, with many high-quality cabinet makers and designers across the world choosing their products for their ease of installation, professional look and simple-to-operate designs.

Master Key Systems America LLC are proud to represent this fabulous product line in the North American market. The prices are competitive without being low end, ensuring customer satisfaction.

We also will supply to various customers across the world, with recent customers purchasing from Ecuador, Chile, New Zealand, Australia apart from our Canadian neighbors.

Browsing through this site, will reveal more details and pictures of Meroni hardware products that will provide good looking alternatives to the more mainstream hardware products available.

Our sister site, http://www.locksmiths-st-louis.com/ has some articles and videos and purchase options for your consideration.

We are a professional locksmith and door repair company providing premium quality products and services across the greater St Louis region. We also sell to other states, cities and countries and can provide quality professional contacts for local installations in those places.

Feel free to contact us for expert assistance by qualified and experienced technicians.

Window Security Film - Reduces Casualties In Recent Spate Of Bombings In NYC

We have written about a security product called Shattergard, that we make available to discerning customers, a number of times in the last few years and now we read with interest about windows in NYC that use shatter proof glass and how effective they were in preventing widespread injuries in the recent bomb blasts that rocked the city.

In the article (in the source below - now since removed) the authors hold that since 9/11, New York City "elders" decided that one way to reduce potential injuries while at the same time reducing the smash and grab crimes of opportunity, was to invest in shatterproof glass and/or products like Shattergard.

Shattergard is a product created and sold by Global Security Products out of Atlanta. My friend and colleague Jordan Frankel designs and produces unique security products aimed at minimizing damages caused by criminals that affect our very lives.

Global Security Products produce products like Shattergard, and related products, Ongard Door Brace, Outdoor Security Lighting and Wirelsss CCTV Camera Security Systems


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NUKI - Another European Access Control Sollution

NUKI is another intelligent creation by some talented German designers and engineers hoping to cash in on the ever growing home automation market.

This product differs from the competition because instead of installing to the interior side of the key lock, the product requires you to insert your existing key in the outer cylinder and then clip the NUKI over the top of it. (Addendum: Assuming a double cylinder is being used, interior NUKI use is advised - this is especially important for countries that adhere to the International Building Code - Egress Rules)

Check out this second video that might better explain the product...



Then operating from your cellphone becomes innate.

I see some security issues with this type of product, specifically if the product is damaged or removed from the door, an attacker now has your mechanical key.

I will agree that this product might suit internal access control in an established office or dwelling, without the increased expense of modifying an installation to accept a relatively expensive modern standalone access control lock.

And in the current economic climate, solutions that provide better value for money, are made from quality and lasting components, more competitively priced alternatives are certainly being sought more frequently by cost conscious consumers who also understand that security, aesthetics and ease of use without a large learning curve, are the solutions many of us want.


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Bold - Smart Cylinder Access Control Technology

Bold Security Technologies just recently released their own iteration of a smart lock. But this particular design is somewhat different.

Technologies like this have been around for a few years now, with industry leaders like Salto, already including a similar product in their vast range of high security mechanical and electro-mechanical access control systems.

The Bold is trying to secure crowdfunding thru Kickstarter and it may even come off, although at $129 per cylinder and only aimed at the (relatively small and already competitive) European market, it is a tad dear.

I think the premise has merits and the idea may even have legs, but competing in an already top-heavy market, with many of the established industry players including Assa-Abloy, Salto, Simmons-Voss and others already producing much broader ranges of smart cylinders that operate across more markets than just the Euro cylinder segment.

The market has seen a number of recent entrants, all vie for share, including August, Kevo, Lockitron to name a few.

One of our signature product lines Meroni, are knee-deep in R&D to bring their nouveau, modern style product line of unique door hardware into the "smart" family. Meroni are perfecting their recent auto-magnetic latch mechanism design, that already provides an almost silent and hidden latch mechanism, with a system that can be locked and unlocked by smart-devices (cell phone, proximity device, etc).

We are anticipating a release of late next year on the Meroni.

Our Recent Computer Catastrophe Has Proved Unrecoverable

It is with deep regret that we unhappily announce that our recent computer catastrophe has rendered our database 99% unrecoverable.

This means that all our high security restricted key system data has been lost forever. The computer failure was sudden and unexpected and compromised our backups too.

We apologize to our many clients who trusted us to maintain these records.

NOTE: None of our systems have been compromised or lost to hackers or stolen details. We have simply lost the intellectual data. That means that all systems already in existence are still secure. We just cannot access any of the data required to produce new key copies or generate new cylinders keyed to existing cylinder loadings or run reports of current quantity of issued keys.

Each System's Contact Information, including all recorded signatories have also been lost.

We will try to contact some clients to update their authority signatory forms and enroll the systems in our new updated and backed up (in multiple locations including the cloud off-site) software.

To our customers, if you require additional keys or any service on your systems, we will require to view an image of all your different existing keys in your system. This way we can rebuild the database by hand and can service and update your systems.

We apologise again and thank you for your understanding.