Milling your own blanks/Universal blanks

It can be done, but it is a lot trickier than one might expect, so I would say that the investment to the reward ratio is rather unfavorable.

Just a thought:

What about casting resin?

Perhaps clients might like the idea of hav>

And you would end up with a plastic key.

For a few dollars someone can walk into a locksmith and get a key machined and be on their way in short order.

What would be the benefit to casting?

Also what would you do if a customer wanted a key fit to a lock? If you had no blank keys, then you would be at a great disadvantage.

there IS a milling machine available to 'custom make' a key to (usually) match a lock that the blank is NLA..

it IS VERY pricy for it too.

--Shiva--

I think thats the point I was trying to make.

Indeed, but how often have you walked into a hardware store and seen a key that has pot leafs of an American flag silk screened onto it for several dollars more?

A purely visual (asthetic) and monetary one. You might be able to charge a few dollars more for a clear plastic (casting resin actually feels quite like glass) key. Not to mention that if the key was made of casting resin, embedding small objects (insects or something) is possible. All of these I think would appeal to those types who buy painted keys.

Theres no reason that the 'poured' keys cant be filed or cut with a dremmel tool? By keeping a single (or a small set in-case of emergency) of blanks and some modeling clay on hand you can easily mold a small reserve of keys.

provided that it can be cut or filed, then I'd only have to see whether or not impressioning leaves marks on the resin casting.

At present I'm only starting my trade school program, and I don't know some basic things about the trade (the price of blanks for instance) but if a particular blank is more costly than some others, there might be a financial benefit to molding them yourself. and if the cost of the resin is more than that of the blank, then the difference can be offset by selling the 'glass' key at a premium (like with the painted blanks).

Anyway, it was just a though, and once my blanks arrive I might try it.... If anyone else would like to aswell, I'd appreciate seeing or hearing about the results here.

Thanks for the help Roger!

It's a waste of time and totally impractical for all but the most unusual custom circumstances. Casting is usually used by people who want to covertly make a copy of a key, not by locksmiths in the general course of business.

I would suspect the actual use of that type of machine is more often than not to duplicate restricted high security blanks for a variety of reasons, some borderline legal except for the patent issues and some not legal at all. As I recall that machine was around $7000 a couple years ago. It's never going to pay for iteself unless you are doing a lot of blanks. IMHO A lot more than you will do just doing obsolete and no longer available unrestricted blanks.

I suppose the 'holy grail' of a key cutting business is a machine that will quickly duplicate any sort of key from a small range of generic blanks.

Perhaps, but the machine I think he was talking about would never have been cost effective for any blank you could buy. Not only was the machine expensive but the blanks it was designed to use were more expensive than almost any ready milled key blank available, excepting some high security. It would only have been worthwhile for somebody doing a LOT of work with obsolete keyways for which blanks were completely unavailable OR somebody duplicating blanks for restricted keyways without legitimate access to blanks.

exactly, the blank cost is nothing.. but, figure .. 30 minutes time setting up and making a needed blank? I can see depending on shop charge time $30 per blank made.. that lock REALLY better be worth it..but, in some cases, it is.

--Shiva--

You are talking about the 7K or so machine from lockmasters. Maybe others but that's the only place I've noticed selling it.

yeah.. thats it.. the west coast seller quit? and Lockmasters took it over IIRR.

--Shiva--

sorry for digging up and old post, but for those who are interested I found;