Gloomy Porch? Get This Torch! (True Utility LockLite Key Torch)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	True Utility LockLite Key Torch
Date:	19/06/07 (117 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very neat one-handed solution to opening a door in the dark.

Disadvantages: Fiddly to reassemble and may not fit all keys straightaway.

Having read the other review on this item, I was moved to buy one for the same price, £3.99 including postage and packing from, you guessed it, ebay.

Despite being a sucker for a gadget, I do actually happen to have a specific reason for wanting a key-ring torch of some kind.

If I approach my front door in the dark, the initial impression that it’s well lit by the street lamp opposite is immediately swept away by your own shadow, and no amount of manoeuvring will let you both see the keyhole and reach it!

Once delivered, first impressions were favourable, as indeed last impressions were too. It’s the journey between one and the other that was a challenge.

The item as unpacked is a neat stainless steel button torch pre-assembled around a plastic replica of a house key.

“Aha!” you’d think, “take it apart, swap the keys over, bung it back together and Robert is your Dad’s brother, right?”

Hmmm, wrong in my case although you may be luckier.

The instructions for this little gadget are quite explicit – “fits all round-headed household keys”, they say. Well, I beg to differ. Maybe if they are Union or Yale or Legge branded keys they fit, but my keys (which up till now I’d always thought of as bog-standard) were too large in many ways.

Firstly, the design called for a thinner key than mine, so off to the shed I go to hone the edges down and file off any raised trade marks etc.

My keys were also a tiny bit too wide in diameter, so back to the shed I went to file off the edges.

At this point I’m starting to feel like the apocryphal Irishman in the joke where he was creating counterfeit 10p pieces by filing the corners off 50p’s.

Once all this was done, it was time to try to re-assemble the torch/key but no, it still wouldn’t fit. It seemed to me that the ‘neck’ of the key (where the circular ‘handle’ meets the ‘locky bits’) was a tad too bulky just where it disappears into the torch as the use of brute force was pushing the Locklite apart, making it impossible to get the lid back on.

Two careful cuts of a millimeter with a slim hacksaw created the necessary slots, and then at last I’m in business and finding that putting it back together is still fiddly as the other reviewer has suggested. However, after all my trials and tribulations, I could do ’fiddly’ standing on my head! The worst part is trying to refit a ‘circlip’ which locks the lanyard to the casing and keeps it all together.

Why file the key down?

a) I refuse to be beaten by a bit of metal.

b) I’d ruled out making any alterations to the metal work of the torch for the simple reason that stainless steel sheet doesn’t file easily whereas…

c) The brass of the key is a damned sight easier to file and

d) I’d got two spare keys and only one torch.

This may seem a lot of bother for something costing a mere four quid, but I do happen to like the finished article, and the ergonomics of it are great.

Just as you are about to fumble for the keyhole, the button falls conveniently under your thumb and maintaining pressure on it is a natural consequence of gripping it to turn the key. Thus, lighting the keyhole and opening the door is a one-handed operation, not two as it might be with a separate torch.

The two lithium batteries supplied are a common size, and combined with the use of a white LED (not a bulb) many thousands of hours of useful life are claimed.

The pool of light created by the torch is just right for purpose. I’m glad about the ‘thousands of hours’ bit – that means I won’t be taking it apart very often!

I’d recommend the Locklite to anyone with branded door keys (or patience, fingernails, 30 minutes and a hack saw and file!) who doesn’t want the extra bulk of a mini torch on their key-ring.

Summary: Turns your door key into a mini torch