I just dealt with the front door lock here at the BlueTower. This had grown
finicky, with keys becoming harder to turn over time, and lately it becoming
harder just to get them in and out of the keyhole. Remembering how these things
were handled in my youth, I picked up a tube of powdered graphite to lube things
up. I got this stuff specifically to fix the lock, but I am still shocked at how
well it worked. After getting some inside the keyhole and the mechanism I worked
the lock a few times and it went from squeaky and resistant to smooth and quiet
in a matter of seconds. I couldn't have expected better results if I had
replaced the entire lock mechanism with a new one made of Teflon marketed for
its smoothness. The funny thing is the graphite came in a tube about 100x larger
than the little ones I remembered, holding well over an ounce. Based on the
minute quantity required to fix my lock, I think I have enough left over to lube
every lock in the county.