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  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Posts
    90
    Country: Canada

    Default Wise chain padlock

    I posed this on another forum and did not get any satisfactory answers so thought I would try here.

    I have this old wise chain lock that I was not able to open because the outer larger ring was frozen and would not budge no matter what I tried. So I decided to take it apart to see what the problem was. I now have an answer but also a question.

    The outer, large ring, was frozen to the housing so firmly that I had to fashion a flat tool that fit into the key slot and hammer it into the slot against the outer ring in order to drive the ring out. It took some hard knocks and I had to force it all the way out in this way. The other outer ring in the other part of the housing is also firmly stuck and won’t budge.

    My question is. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can fre this ring without destroying it or the lock. I would like to salvage the lock and possible hold it together with a screw of some kind. I have tried soaking the lock in penetrating oil, freezing the lock to see if the different metals would contract differently, freezing and then boiling the lock to see if that would loosen the ring but nothing has worked. As you can see from the photos there is very little of the ring protroding so nothing to grasp.

    Thanks for any suggestions that you might offer.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails wise1.JPG   wise 2.jpg   wise 3.jpg   wise 4.jpg   wise 5.jpg  


  2. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Tonawanda, NY, USA
    Posts
    900
    Country: United States

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by candado3 View Post
    My question is. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can fre this ring without destroying it or the lock. I would like to salvage the lock and possible hold it together with a screw of some kind. I have tried soaking the lock in penetrating oil, freezing the lock to see if the different metals would contract differently, freezing and then boiling the lock to see if that would loosen the ring but nothing has worked. As you can see from the photos there is very little of the ring protroding so nothing to grasp.
    Thanks for any suggestions that you might offer.
    You said you tried penetrating oil, I have had good results with an industrial product called AeroKroil from Kano Laboratories. Sold direct on the Internet and by Amazon.com:
    http://www.kanolabs.com/penLub.html

    Pete Schifferli

  3. #3
    Join Date
    May 2016
    Posts
    90
    Country: Canada

    Default

    Thanks Pete,
    I soaked the lock part in a bath of Liquid Wrench for about 4 days with no help in getting the ring loose.
    I have ordered a can of AeroKroil Penetrant and will give it a try.
    It's quite expensive Can$32.00 including shipping for an 8oz can.
    Hope it works!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Tonawanda, NY, USA
    Posts
    900
    Country: United States

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by candado3 View Post
    Thanks Pete,
    I soaked the lock part in a bath of Liquid Wrench for about 4 days with no help in getting the ring loose.
    I have ordered a can of AeroKroil Penetrant and will give it a try.
    It's quite expensive Can$32.00 including shipping for an 8oz can.
    Hope it works!
    I hope it works also, 8 oz. aerosol AeroKroil is $10.00 ea. + S&H from the KanoLabs.com website while the 16.5 oz. size is $21.50 ea., don't know about shipping to Canada however.

    Pete Schifferli

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    1,485
    Country: United States

    Default

    Presumably the ring and body are different metals. I'd guess the body is some type of zinc alloy ("pot metal"). Depending on their respective coefficients of thermal expansion, either cooling or heating might help. The point being to either make the body expand more than the ring (heat), or for the ring to shrink more than the body (cooling). It appears that Zamak's expansion is 27.8 μm/m per degree C, while steel is 13 μm/m (and aluminum is 23.1), if I've wrestled the decimal points correctly (feel free to check me). This suggests that heat would cause the body to expand more than a steel ring.

    But any temperature extreme could damage the body. I recall that many zinc alloys are unstable over time and a big thermal cycling might be dangerous. If anybody is more aware of this issue please let us know.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    1,485
    Country: United States

    Default

    I just noticed you said the ring was brass (in the images), which has a coefficient of 19. This still suggests heat would expand the body more if it's Zamak or aluminum but now the difference is rather small.

    This might be how the parts were assembled at the factory, e.g. cool the ring and heat the casting.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Posts
    1,754
    Country: Wales

    Default

    Candado good luck it must be ridiculously good for $32 !! it’s more than likely just another distilled petroleum based fluid like all the others but hopefully it’ll work for you. Over here Plusgas is as good as any for freeing up and very effective at dissimilar metals but there are limits to what they can do.

    Definitely try expansion /contraction through careful heating like wylk suggested as it’ll be even more effective after a really good soaking, but if it proves to be past the point of all hope all is not lost.
    Not too difficult to drill the brass out, A good rigid set-up essential as admittedly its not the easiest part to hold,, but do it carefully and grind off the sharp rake from the two cutting edges of the twist drill first to prevent it snatching. it’s an easy enough job to turn a new ring or sleeve from bar once its out.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Posts
    714
    Country: United States

    Default Wise chain padlock

    What Huw said was one way to do it. Not sure if this will work or not but can't think of name of it as I think they call it specialty drill bit dewezs1 per attached can look it up in Google. Because is it brass make turn it back and forth to get it loose up and to pull it out. Like i said not sure if it may work.....Tim.....
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails drill-america-specialty-drill-bits-dewezs1-5-64_1000.jpg  

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