China cabinet locks are small furniture locks that keep glass doors and drawers shut, protecting the dishes, silver and collectibles inside, opening only for your key. The call we get most: the key is gone. King Locksmith opens, rekeys, repairs and replaces them across Maryland, Washington DC and Northern Virginia, licensed, insured and bonded for 25 years.
Most of these are cam locks: a keyed cylinder whose flat metal arm, the cam, swings behind the frame when the key turns. It fits one round hole, usually 5/8 or 7/8 inch, in lengths from 5/8 to 1-3/8 inch matched to door thickness, and a retainer nut clamps it tight. They are tested under ANSI/BHMA A156.11, the cabinet lock standard.
Disc tumbler cylinders use flat brass wafers and a key code stamped on the face, so a lost key is cut from that number. Pin tumbler cylinders resist picking, and some take a standard door keyway, so a District of Columbia hutch opens with the house key.
You stop worrying about small hands or a cleaning crew near the good china, because the doors stay shut until your key opens them. Unlike a magnetic catch, a locked cam holds a glass door shut through a bump that would otherwise spill a shelf of crystal.
One key runs every cabinet, since cam locks key alike. A pin tumbler cylinder suits a case holding value: wafers yield to a bent paperclip, pins do not. No lock at all? We drill one hole and fit one today.
Dining room hutches and buffets, curio cabinets, sideboard silver drawers, jewelry armoires and jewelry counter and antique shop showcases all run a cam or plunger lock. So do trophy cases in school lobbies, and medicine and liquor cabinets in Northern Virginia homes with young children.
Where it is the wrong choice: a cabinet holding firearms or controlled medication needs a rated safe or a pharmacy-grade lock, never a furniture lock. Not sure which your cabinet needs? We survey it free.
Send us a photo of the cabinet door and we tell you what fits, what it costs and whether one key can run every cabinet you own. Free survey, no obligation.
5 brands ride on our trucks because they fit the cabinets we actually open: keys cut from codes, cylinders in stock, and cores that swap.
CompX National cam locks sit on most hutches and showcases we open, and we stock their cylinders, so lost keys are replaced the same day.
Olympus cabinet locks use a Schlage keyway cylinder, the same key shape as many front doors, so your hutch and front door share one key.
Medeco cam locks use a restricted keyway, a key shape hardware stores cannot copy, so the key to a jewelry case stays in your hands.
CCL Security plunger locks guard older sliding glass showcases, and we carry matching sizes, so a worn lock gets swapped without replacing the glass door.
The key is gone: our commonest call, and a disc tumbler cam lock carries a key code we cut from. The key snapped off in the plug, the rotating part it slides into, after years of bending. The cylinder spins and nothing unlocks, because the retainer nut backed off.
On arrival we read the key code, probe the plug for fragments, then test the retainer nut and cam before deciding: open, extract, tighten or replace. Locked out? Our mobile units respond 24/7. Call (240) 345-1455 in Maryland or (202) 800-2622 in Washington DC and NOVA.
Lost key: we read the code on the cylinder face and cut one, or pick the lock and cut to the wafers if the stamp is gone. Broken key: we pull the fragment with an extractor, a thin hooked blade. Spinning cylinder: we tighten the retainer nut, refit the cam. When wafers are worn smooth or the cylinder is bent, we replace.
Replacement means measuring hole diameter, door thickness and cam offset, so the new lock uses the existing hole. We match a disc or pin tumbler cylinder, key it alike where formats allow, install and test key and cam before leaving. Free estimates, always.
A china cabinet you cannot open keeps your own heirlooms from you. Call (240) 345-1455 now or book china cabinet lock service online today.
China cabinet locks secure dining hutches and jewelry showcases, but every door has its match. Browse our lock type resources below to see each function, its applications and our services.
Straight answers from King Locksmith Technicans to on China cabinet locks questions customers ask us most.
(240) 345-1455
Often yes: standard keys are cut from the stamped code. Restricted keyways stop that.
Yes, if they share a format: cam locks key alike from one code.
Nearly always: we match hole size and door thickness.
A stamped round face is a cam lock, a push button on sliding glass a plunger lock, and NOVA antiques a full-mortise lock.
