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Although you might not be able to permanently fix a lock when you are just looking for how to remove a broken padlock, you might be able to get it to a certain level of functionality. 

For example, the keyway of a lock can become clogged.

It might not be as easy to clean out as it would be to remove a broken key from a lock, but if a vandal has shoved sticks or sprayed foam, you can still pick out what is blocking your key.

Other times, jamming that is due to wear, or a natural accumulation of rust or gunk can sometimes be removed with some lubricant. Lubrication can allow the materials that are catching on one another to slide past each other, perhaps only temporarily.

You might be able to clean the lock well enough to safely use it again without fear of dealing with a broken padlock still, but that is not currently the concern. What you should be worried about is only how to open a broken lock.

Beyond lubrication and cleaning the lock, there is going to be very little that will fix the broken padlock. 

With a padlock broken to the point where necessary cleaning does not work, you should most likely move on to a different broken padlock removal method such as calling us.

 To shim a padlock, the padlock has to utilize a particular type of locking pawls. 

You cannot shim a padlock that has ball bearings, but with the locking pawls that you would find on the products of less than adequate security manufactures, this is very possible.

To know if your padlock can be shimmed, you can either look up the details of your particular lock online or in any type of documentation you can get your hands on, or see if you can find/remember how the shackle looks.

If the shackle has cuts that look like little crescent moons that dimple in (very curved and smooth), then you will know the padlock uses ball bearings.

The type of cut you want to see is a is squared off or having an almost fish hook shape. That shape corresponds to a locking pawl that can be depressed by a shim.

A shim is a slim metal device that you can make yourself out of an aluminium can or you can even buy several sturdier padlock shims on Amazon. 

If you use two shims on a padlock that can be shimmed, unless the padlock is broken to too severe of a degree, you will be able to open and remove the lock.

Any padlock can be cut. It does not matter if you have the best padlock ever made, or even the strongest lock that could even theoretically exist, with the right tool and enough time, you can remove any broken padlock by cutting it which is a service that we provide.

Most padlocks can be removed with a pair of bolt cutters however some cannot.

The stronger the padlock, the larger the bolt cutters will be needed (the larger the bolt cutters, the more PSI can be applied with less strain on the user).