Figure 10 Figure 11 Figures 10 and 11. There was a bolt block attac moving closer together once the bolt block was out of the way. doing exactly what I experienced during diagnostics earlier. I was able to force the lever into the wheelpack with a probe and then over to the leſt to retract the bolt (Figure 9). I reached over to turn the handle, and NOTHING! (This seems to be becom- ing a theme in my life.) What the hell?! Now, from all the (limited) informa- tion I had gathered up to this point on this thing, it wasn’t supposed to have any kind of external relocker. At least nothing that I was aware of. But SOMETHING was still blocking the boltwork from re- tracting. At this point, I began second guessing myself. “Was the lock bolt fully retracted?” Are you SURE the lock bolt is fully retracted?” “Are you positive the lock bolt is fully retracted?!” There is a bolt block attached to the extended bolt on the lock which blocks two vertical parts of the boltwork from moving closer together once the bolt block is out of the way (Figures 10 and 11). Something I’ve observed over the years is that the clearance can be ex- tremely tight on these. So if the lock WWW.ALOA.ORG bolt wasn’t COMPLETELY retracted, the edge of one (or both) of the vertical bars could be catching just enough on the edge(s) of the bolt block, preventing them from moving toward each other when the handle was turned. Just a Bit More So, going wth that theory, I wasted a bunch of time relocking and unlocking the lock over and over to see if I could get bolt to come back juuuuuust a little bit more. But the more I looked inside the lock case, the more convinced I became that the lock bolt was, in fact, retracted as far as it could possibly go. At this point, every “under the dial” option was gone! (GSA, remember?) I was now thinking that maybe the screws attaching the bolt block to the lock bolt had come loose, broken, whatever, and the bolt block was still blocking the ver- tical bars. But HOW was I going to deal with that, since my hole would be outside the dial ring? It’s my understanding that you CAN drill outside the dial ring on a vault door. But this was not a vault door. I did try bouncing things around with a dead blow hammer. But nada. A New Game Plan I decided to call it a day, explain the situation to my customer, pack up my tools, and go home to do some more “re- search.” (And aſter dealing with the hard- plate, then having this monkey wrench thrown into the works, frankly, I’d just had enough. I needed to destress.) I fig- ured I’d just develop a new game plan and start fresh in the morning. Aſter getting home and searching ev- erywhere I could for more information, I began making phone calls. (This is why it’s imperative to have a good network of friends — many, preferably, more knowl- edgeable than yourself!) I called Joe Cor- tie. He tended to agree that the most like- ly culprit was the loose bolt block. But “HOW,” I asked, “am I supposed to drill for it if it’s outside the dial ring?” He then informed me that it would be okay to do that since it’s a door, not a drawer. Now, I didn’t remember this from the APRIL 2017 KEYNOTES 25
