That's not even our brand! Stop trying to return it!

[RealUnimportant]

We've had a batch of new keys cut for work, where we have a door between the private & public areas which all staff need access to. The new keys looked perfectly fine with the teeth lined up, but if you inverted the new & old keys in relation to eachother you soon noticed they'd all been cut a whole millimeter shorter along the whole length! All we can assume is that the key used to originate the cuts had been pushed too deeply into the tracer, or the prace point itself was misaligned. Caused some headscratching for a while, too!

[Argabarga]

Making a copy of a non working copy really doesn't work that well. If the thing you are copying is bad/wrong..then whatever comes out is going to be bad/wrong. For instance..

You what copies of a flyer that says "First house on the left.", but the flyer you bring in says "Last house on right" when you copy it ..it is not going to magically say "First house on the left."

YES IT WILL! IF IT WON"T DO WHAT I WANT THEN THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOUR MACHINE!

Ah, moon logic! Accept no substitutes

[Jay 2K Winger]

Call the locksmith!

I also wanted to reply to this thread with "Are you the Keymaster?"

There is no Dana, only Zuul?

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Had to be a scammer wanting a free key (possibly to someone else's place). I mean, seriously, who could not understand that if a copy of a key doesn't work, it's a bad copy, and if you copy the bad copy, you just get yet another bad copy. Someone with the IQ of a goldfish could get that. And speaking of IQ's, I think mine went down a couple of points just reading about that guy.

That's pretty much the same thing I was thinking. And from the way he behaved, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if there's a restraining order involved . . . .

[Shangri-laschild]

That's actually pretty easy to do. Not all blanks are the same, apparently. I've had some Schlage keys that match an SC1, but are just an eighth of an inch too long, meaning my SC1 would have to have its shoulder shaved off a little. It happens anyway but it's nerve-wracking to do, because you have absolutely no leeway in the lock. It's either in all the way and it'll work, or it's in 98.5% of the way and it won't turn.

Yeah there can be some odd variances and it can be a pain to deal with. It's slightly easier when you can code cut the keys but not a whole lot.

Just curious. Is there a spec to how far off a key can be and still work? How many times can you make a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy... before it just won't work?

Strongly depends on the lock and the key. Kwiksets have a lot of wiggle room, Schlage has not as much. It also depends on how small the pins are. If the pins get too small (usually things are set up to safeguard against this) then you could be a whole cut off on that one and have it still work. Mostly it's hard to explain unless you have an understanding of the pins in locks and key cuts and such. And sometimes you just get odd keys that aren't exactly accurate and shouldn't work but still do anyway. The copy of a copy thing would depend as well on all of that. With the locks we use where I work, after about 3-4, it probably wouldn't work and that's best case.

[Syriilord]

There is no Dana, only Zuul?

Oh, Zuuly you old nut

[Shalom]

So I cut keys at a slightly lesserly (It's a word now, nyahaha!) known Hardware store. We actually have our own brand of almost all of the blanks. It's very obvious when you look at a key and see whether or not it was made in my store or at some other store. Very obvious. (snippety)
Customer: "This key doesn't work! Make me a new one!"
Hardware Guy: *Looks at it* "Hm. Doesn't look like one of the ones I made."

I had one customer swear on a stack of bibles that we'd made her a key that didn't work. I asked her to show me the key; it said "True Value Hardware" on it. Needless to say, there was no way my store could possibly have gotten one of those blanks, we not being affiliated with that franchise; not to mention that I stamped the store name on every key I cut, as required by NYC ordinance. She still refused to believe me. We had very much the same conversation that you did. (can't quote verbatim, this was 25 years ago, but she ended off by telling me that I was going to Hell for lying to her. Shyeah right.)

We are NOT to copy a key onto a blank that the customer brings in themselves. Period. Liability issues.

We didn't like to do that either. The only time I would do it was if it was a blank that I didn't have and couldn't get, and there were very damn few of those. Even then, I'd check it on the magnet first, and if it stuck, you're out of luck. We didn't touch steel blanks, as they'd wreck our cutters: brass, nickel-silver or aluminum only, thank you.

(OK, one exception. NY-area Pepsi distributors used Mercedes-Benz 1117 trucks whose key blanks were only available from Börkey (#1477), and were nickel-plated steel. We cut them, but very slowly, and only on one particular machine. Silca also made a (nickel-plated brass) key for these locks (#CR4R) but they didn't export them to the USA. I finally called their local rep and asked them why not, given the popularity of these trucks here; he said he hadn't even known there was anything using them in the USA. Next catalog they printed, guess what showed up.)

Just curious. Is there a spec to how far off a key can be and still work? How many times can you make a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy... before it just won't work?

Before they hired me, my shop used that as a quick-and-dirty way of checking the adjustment on the machine, after changing the cutter or whatever. Get a good original key on a cylinder with tight tolerance (Corbin or similar), copy the key, then switch and copy the copy. Keep going until you get one that doesn't work, then disassemble the cylinder and see which pins are off, so you know how to adjust the guide. I showed them how to use a dial caliper, saved a lot of key blanks that way I kept my key machines accurate to 0.0005" when possible; if I remember correctly I could typically get seven generations before it got too far out.

Making a copy of a non working copy really doesn't work that well. If the thing you are copying is bad/wrong..then whatever comes out is going to be bad/wrong. "

Yeah, my boss used the Xerox analogy a lot. I am reminded of a famous quote by Charles Babbage, inventor of a mechanical calculator called the Difference Engine: "On two occasions I have been asked, [by members of Parliament!] —"Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?"... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

Well, I have copies of copies that work, but it is true that the more original the key is the better it will work, especially since I have had a few people copy keys and mess them up where you have to partially insert the key to get it to work. I guess I can understand the make the key thing if your a locksmith that had the tools to figure out what the "code" is and recut a perfect blank, but im pretty sure most hardware stores only have the machine that traces the original

I could sometimes make a working key from a non-working one, but you had to let me know in advance. If a key was very worn down, I could shim it up with a couple folds of paper under it, giving me an extra 0.005" or so; if it was cut too high (you can see impression marks on the cuts), I could leave the copy on the wire brush a few extra seconds and take it down by 0.005". Or if it was really messed up, I could crank up the HPC1200 and originate one from scratch. But I couldn't just slap it in the duplicator and copy it as is, unless you wanted a non-working key for some reason.

If you have to partially insert a key for it to work, then either the spacing is messed up (oriignal key wasn't inserted far enough into the jaw, so the cuts are too close to the tip) or the depths are messed up (cut too deep, so you pull the key back out a smidgen and the pins ride up on the slope of the cuts, raising them to the shear line).

I've had some Schlage keys that match an SC1, but are just an eighth of an inch too long, meaning my SC1 would have to have its shoulder shaved off a little. It happens anyway but it's nerve-wracking to do, because you have absolutely no leeway in the lock. It's either in all the way and it'll work, or it's in 98.5% of the way and it won't turn.

I'm constantly afraid of these little unexpected varieties.

Why not just use an SC4 then? Easier to shorten a 6-pin blank than lengthen a 5-pin blank.

[wolfie]

We didn't like to do that either. The only time I would do it was if it was a blank that I didn't have and couldn't get, and there were very damn few of those. Even then, I'd check it on the magnet first, and if it stuck, you're out of luck. We didn't touch steel blanks, as they'd wreck our cutters: brass, nickel-silver or aluminum only, thank you.

Just curious, but does anyone make blanks out of 3xx stainless steel? It's an austenitic alloy (has to do with the crystal structure), so it's non-magnetic, but it wears cutting tools a heck of a lot faster than ordinary steel.

[ShadowTiger]

Why not just use an SC4 then? Easier to shorten a 6-pin blank than lengthen a 5-pin blank.

I have this machine in my store. I try to use a thin washer to align most of my keys from the end of the key, rather than from the shoulder. If I do it that way, all I have to cut away are the shoulders on the SC1 on its upper and occasionally lower side. If I go from a shoulder alignment, I have to cut away the end of the blade. I have no easy way to accurately measure a correct angle to the underside of the blade to correspond with what I cut away with the upper area.

I could sometimes make a working key from a non-working one, but you had to let me know in advance. If a key was very worn down, I could shim it up with a couple folds of paper under it, giving me an extra 0.005" or so; if it was cut too high (you can see impression marks on the cuts), I could leave the copy on the wire brush a few extra seconds and take it down by 0.005". Or if it was really messed up, I could crank up the HPC1200 and originate one from scratch. But I couldn't just slap it in the duplicator and copy it as is, unless you wanted a non-working key for some reason.

Brilliant idea, by the way. :]