I'm Isaac Hashman, a journeyman locksmith in Calgary.

It started with a luggage lock

As a kid I sat on the floor with a cheap luggage lock, turning the little wheels one number at a time and pulling on the shackle until my thumb was raw. I didn't know it then, but that lock taught me the first idea behind everything I do now: the secret lives on wheels and pins you can't see, and with patience you can feel them.

A hobby that turned into a trade

I got into lock picking as a hobby, the way some people get into chess, and I got good at it fast. Soon I ran out of locks to practise on, so I called a local locksmith to ask if he had any old ones lying around.

That locksmith was Andy Leung, the owner of David Locksmith, a Calgary family shop his father started in 1982. Andy handed me a few old locks to see what I could do. I picked them and brought them back. We kept that up for a few weeks, locks going back and forth, until one day he handed me a Mul-T-Lock, a serious high security lock, and said that if I could pick that one, I was hired.

Apprentice, school, journeyman

I got the job. I did a year of hands-on work as Andy's apprentice, then went to locksmithing school, and I've finished my schooling for my journeyman ticket. Andy trained me as master and apprentice, and we're like family. I still work beside him at David Locksmith.

Isaac Locksmith is my own name on my own work. It's how you reach me directly, anywhere in Calgary.

High security locks, from the inside

I've picked thousands of locks, and I've taken the hard ones apart to see why they're hard: ASSA, Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, ABLOY, EVVA, BiLock. Two of the things I've done are, as far as I know, North American firsts: decoding the shrouded version of a Sargent and Greenleaf military padlock, and picking a Medeco deadbolt in the field. When I recommend a lock for your door, I've usually had one in pieces on my bench.

Safes by hand

Safe dial manipulation is my craft edge: opening a safe by feel on the dial, so it can be used again. Very few locksmiths do it. I've opened safes for customers in Calgary this way, and I'm working up through the dials built to resist it. The whole story is on its own page.