How to get a broken key out of a door lock

Our life is replete with curious cases, but it is one thing when such an incident causes universal laughter and cheers up, and quite another when it turns into serious difficulties. Opening the front or garage door again, you can get into a situation where one part of the key remains in the lock, and the second is in your hands. Usually, as luck would have it, you are in a hurry somewhere, hoping to jump home or to the garage as quickly as possible, take some thing in order to run further, and one careless movement and it turns out that there is no point in running.

Having broken the key, the most important thing is not to panic and not do stupid things so as not to aggravate the situation. You don’t need to shove the piece that remains in your hand into the keyhole, pushing the broken part even deeper, it’s better to use the advice of experts on how to pull a broken key out of the lock, we presented them in this article.

Why does the key break off when opening the lock?

Before considering specific tips for extracting key pieces from the secret of the lock, let's decide why such a key breaks. There are actually quite a few reasons for this. Let's define them concisely.

Whatever the reason for the breakage of the key, the fact is obvious, it is broken, and something needs to be done about it. There are many ways out of the situation. Locksmiths have kindly shared some secrets on how to get a broken key out of a lock with the least risk of damaging it. And we will definitely share this information, but first I would like to talk about how it is unnecessary to act when removing a stuck key.

Myths about the ease of removing the key from the lock

On the Internet, you can find a lot of informational articles that vying with each other about simple ways to extract a piece of a key from a lock. In fact, everything is not so simple, because in most cases the key is not just stuck in the mechanism, it is wedged there. Moreover, it often jams tightly, and it is not possible to pull it out with superglue, as the authors of some articles suggest to us.

Experts, evaluating the method of extracting part of the key using superglue, simply laugh, because this method, if I may say so, does not stand up to criticism. Firstly, the glue is not able to "grab" the two fragments well enough for the stuck part to be pulled out. And secondly, most likely a piece smeared with glue, which you will shove into the castle, will smear the inner walls of its well. And the second part of the key will safely stick to them.

The option with glue is also bad because careless handling of it can lead to chemicals getting into the secret mechanism of the lock, which will inevitably lead to its breakdown. Then you have to look for a way to clean the lock mechanism from superglue, but why is all this needed? Also found on some forums is a mythical proposal to extract a fragment of a key from a keyhole using a wire. I would like to ask the author of the method a question, did he try to do a similar trick himself?

Experts say that theoretically, using a thin steel wire, it is possible to remove the stuck part of the key, but this requires skill and is obtained only in a very limited number of cases.

We take out the broken part of the key by disassembling the lock

If only the key in the lock is broken, then you need a quick and reliable way to remove the broken part from the keyhole, preferably without damaging the lock. There are reliable methods, but the speed of extracting the damaged part will depend on your skill. Perhaps the surest way to solve such a problem can be considered the extraction of a fragment from a disassembled castle.

But there is a problem here, because you need to get into the room and open the door in order to gain access to the lock case, and this is often not available. Therefore, this method can be taken into account, in case you manage to come up with an alternative option for entering an enclosed space.

A self-tapping screw will help to pull out the key

Relatively quickly and efficiently, you can pull out a stuck chip from a keyhole using a drill with a thin drill bit and a self-tapping screw. The work to be done is very delicate, worthy of the best jeweler. The task is to get the drill into the end of the stuck piece of the key with a drill, drill a hole in it and manage to screw a self-tapping screw into it, if you act carefully, this is quite possible.

Do not rush to pull the screw or twist it, trying to remove the chip right away, it is better to spray WD-40 liquid into the keyhole and gently shake the stuck part of the key. Only after 5-10 minutes of such a "swing", you can try, using pliers, very carefully "fish out" the chip.

Let's use pliers

If a part of its fragment sticks out of the key hole, large enough to grab it with pliers, round-nose pliers, or, in extreme cases, sharpened tweezers, you should try to extract it with these tools. Again, when doing this, do not repeat the mistakes of thousands of “unfortunate masters” who, grabbing a piece with pliers, pulled it so hard and thoughtlessly that they broke it again, exacerbating the problem.

Before you start to “wield” the tool, you need to thoroughly lubricate the inside of the keyhole, and wait until the lubricant spreads, getting between the stuck fragment and the walls of the secret mechanism, and only then make attempts to pull out the broken part of the key. Act carefully and the chances of success will be very serious.

Exotic ways to extract a broken key from the lock mechanism

Summing up, we note that there are rather unusual ways to extract a piece of a key from a lock offered by professionals. Consider them too, since they clearly deserve our attention.