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Locksmith and family discover a deceased person in a car trunk

NORTHPORT, AL (WBRC) -  A body believed to be a missing Tuscaloosa County woman was found in the trunk of her car in her garage.  Sherry Sellers, 50, had been missing since January 2009.

Monday, her family called a locksmith to the home just off Alabama Highway 43 near Lake Tuscaloosa.

The locksmith opened the trunk and there the body laid.

The cause of death is unknown. Tests are underway to verify the identity.

Investigators say they searched the house when Sellers went missing. They did not open the car’s trunk because they did not have the key.

Learning the Trade

Learning locksmithing can begin at a very young age. A good indicator is when a child has an interest in how things fit together and how they come apart.  This aptitude can be capitalized on and can lead to a future with locks and locksmithing.

The locksmith trade can be learned by self-study courses, apprenticeships or from a family member in the business. It takes a combination of these things to advance to the professional status.  I would definitely suggest an apprenticeship if you can get one, it is by far the best way to learn.

Should you desire to become an apprentice from an established locksmith, it is best to determine that this person is certified. Know also that there are many aspects of the business to learn and you may need more training than an apprenticeship from a single person. If that person specializes in automotive locksmithing and you want to learn commercial locksmithing, you’ll have a start in the right direction but will need more information and experience.  Stands to reason really, to apprentice yourself to someone in your chosen area of expertise. 

If you’ve considered becoming certified through a school or distance course, make sure that the school is certified and that the place where you purchase your distance course is legitimate and accredited. More so than with other courses, if the school is a fraud, even though you may learn everything you need to know, it may make your certificate a fraud as well. Your investment should be placed in respectable schools.  Legitimacy is very important in this trade.

Learning which area of locksmithing you’d be happiest choosing may require some research and/or experimentation. Even if you choose an area and later decide to change your focus, the knowledge you’ve acquired could still come in handy in your career.

The beginning of your career will usually involve books, hardware, and a key making machine. There are many helpful forums on the internet to point you in the right direction and provide helpful hints as well. Knowing which equipment to start with is a must. If you have a limited budget to begin with, you’ll want to get the most from your money. You can’t put all your money into the books and not the equipment as you will need both.

Locksmiths service many types of businesses. Unlocking cars is not the only way to make money . Many small towns don’t even have locksmith services. If you can afford to run the business out of your home, you could be extremely helpful to people in rural communities. Building a name for yourself through word-of-mouth in small areas can lead to loyal customers who are happy to spread the word and advertise for you. This in turn leads to contracts with bigger businesses. Learning the locksmith craft involves people skills as well as study!

Tools of the Trade

Locksmiths use a wide variety of tools depending on the job and locks that require working.  They also have numerous tools for making keys, locks, electronic locks, and security systems. These tools range from the simple metal lock picks to a wide assortment of different electronics that can be used to aid in their job.  Some of the most common and frequently used tools are;

The Lock Aid Tool.  You see them in the movies sometimes, it looks a bit like a pistol and with a trigger to fit the pins.  It was designed for law enforcement agencies to quickly pick pin tumbler locks. It is one of the types of tools you may see a locksmith use on occasion. It’s mostly an automatic style lock picker that will get the lock open using one of the methods that the model supports. 

Formed End Tweezers are fairly small tools with curved ends for grip. They are commonly made of stainless steel to prevent wear and tear.

The Window Crank allows the locksmith to slip behind window the crank and remove the spring clip to allow access. This is a less used simple tool, but still used when the door proves impossible to get through.

The “Small Pin & Peanut” is used for most small pin tumbler rekeying jobs. Its ease of use and simple design make it quite the popular choice among locksmiths the world over.

Another common tool is the “Clip Zip Door Panel Tool” as some stores call it. It helps you remove car door panels and makes the job a lot easier for the locksmith.  This saves a lot of time, and broken pins on an auto lock job.

The AM700 is for American padlocks. The American 700 series round body lock is one of the most widely used padlocks for industrial and commercial security. This tool is used to pick and open many of those types of locks due to its design. This is argued to be one of the more popular tools used by locksmiths in the USA today.

History of Locksmithing

The history of the locksmith is a long and dignified one.  Starting as an offshoot of blacksmithing it soon became a trade of its own once locks became popular.  As long as there have been keys, people have been losing them!

Although it is one of the oldest engineering trades in the world, it is still one of the fastest moving ones.  There are constant improvements and innovations design to protect people and property, and the locksmith is ‘key’ to most of them. 

The shape and types of locks remained fairly constant from the middle ages until the nineteenth century.  As populations and crime grew, better security was needed to protect property.  In the 1930’s, the biggest innovation for ages took place with the invention of the mortise lock.  This new design made it much more difficult for someone to pick and was the real beginning of the specialization of locksmithing.

Between that time and the 1970’s there wasn’t much innovation in security.  Now there are as many types of lock as there are locksmiths.  Each new version becoming more and more sophisticated.  A modern locksmith is almost half electronics expert now! 

Traditionally an apprenticed trade, handed down from father to son, it is now something anyone with a technical aptitude can study.  There are even degrees and certification courses you can take.

As well as handling the technical aspect of locksmithing, there is a fair amount of customer service and people skills involved.  Generally locksmiths are like the police, in that people only want them when something is wrong.  This will mean people in awkward and sometimes very stressful situations.  You need to know how to handle and defuse these kinds of things as well as take care of the job you were called to do.