Hi Folks,
Long ago I bought a batch of surplus keys. Most of them were Cole, though there were other brands mixed in as well. These blanks gave me fits last night when I cut keys to code.
I was re-pinning a brand new set of American Lock padlocks for my mother in law last night. I cut a new set of keys for her because her old locks were pretty worn and her keys were second or third generation. I wanted the bitting to remain the same so my brother in law would not be locked out. I used AM3 blanks (5 pin).
The keys I created worked in two of the three padlocks, but not smoothly. A pin or two were dragging, making the keys difficult to turn. I re-measured everything several times. I fudged the spacing (wide cuts) and experimented with the depths. I finally disassembled one of the cylinders to see where I was going wrong.
It turns out that the milling on these old Cole blanks were about .006 inch thinner than the originals, and they were about .005 inch closer to the back of the key. The key rides on these millings. The end result was that I had to add .011 inch to the cuts to line up the pins correctly.
So the question to the group: When cutting by code, how do you make sure that these little discrepancies aren't messing up your keys? Do you buy only originals? Do you have a spacific brand that you trust? Do you keep track of the fact that with brand X you add a few thousandths? Other tricks?
Thanks,
Daniel