by | April 27, 2012

Aero IC

The newest and  I/​C core soft­ware in the industry

Inter­change­able core locks offer many ben­e­fits that both end users and lock­smiths can appre­ci­ate. They can eas­ily be exchanged when a ten­ant leaves and offer great secu­rity ben­e­fits. The trou­ble with these locks often occurs dur­ing key­ing. With com­plex key­ing sys­tems, gen­er­at­ing or re-​​generating a key when all the other keys have been lost can be a com­plex and time con­sum­ing task. Aero Lock has just intro­duced an IC core key­ing pro­gram to act as a per­fect lock­smith tool to be sim­ple and easy to use, but offer some great features.

IC Core Pinning Software

Great famil­iar features!

Upon open­ing AeroIC , the user will quickly notice some of the sim­i­lar and easy to use for­mat of Aero Locks’s pre­vi­ous soft­ware pro­gram, AeroKey (See our arti­cle on AeroKey). The design­ers of AeroIC really wanted to cre­ate a pro­gram that was sim­ple enough for any­one in the indus­try to use, but not lack­ing any nec­es­sary com­po­nents of an Inter­change­able core pin­ning pro­gram. All of the essen­tial fea­tures of an Inter­change­able core pro­gram are avail­able, such as choos­ing between sys­tems, step value, deep­est first cut, usable depths, and MACS. At the bot­tom the user is able to auto gen­er­ate their mas­ter and con­trol key bit­ting or enter their own. There is also a place to add sub-​​master keys and decide how many change keys they would like. The results of this can then be attained with the push of a but­ton. An very use­ful fea­ture can also be uti­lized when the “Include all pos­si­ble keys” box is marked. This will gen­er­ate all of the pos­si­ble change keys for the sys­tem, in the case you may want to add keys in the future.

The results page also offers the same great fea­tures of AeroKey, with pin count at the top of the page inform­ing the user how many of each size pin they should expect to use for this job.  There is a very neat and orga­nized chart of key num­ber, change key bit­ting, and the key chart for each cylin­der. There are more  options for sav­ing the pin­ning results to a text file. This opens a file that is editable, so that each key can be labeled for its pur­pose and keys can be marked as “used” so that another door is not keyed the same on a future job.

Sav­ing and re-​​opening your exist­ing charts may be one of the great­est fea­tures about hav­ing AeroIC. Long gone are the days of los­ing key­ing charts for jobs or not being able to read a co work­ers writ­ing. A sim­ple click can pull up a pre­vi­ously saved chart to ref­er­ence back to when return­ing to a work site. Many times this can even help a tech­ni­cian from drilling out a core when the cus­tomer has lost their keys. The ben­e­fits are end­less in regard to record keeping.

Inno­v­a­tive new features!

Interchangeable Core Software

The pin­ning cal­cu­la­tor on AeroIC allows the user to choose the sys­tem type and then plug in your exist­ing mas­ter, con­trol, and change key bit­ting; then gen­er­ate the pin­ning sys­tem. Another great fea­ture when using the soft­ware is the abil­ity to plug in the dri­ver pins and gen­er­ate the con­trol key bit­ting. Often on work­sites, the tech­ni­cian has to remove sev­eral cores when all of the keys are lost to rekey the locks or gen­er­ate a new key when they are all lost. This fea­ture allows the tech to take one lock apart, plug in the dri­ver pins, and cre­ate the bit­ting for the con­trol key. At this point, all of the other exist­ing locks can be removed with­out pick­ing or drilling.

 

 

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by | April 19, 2012

Locksmith Tools-​​Installation Tools

Installs, repairs, and emer­gency calls all require a ser­vice tech­ni­cian to arrive on site with the tools to per­form the job right. Set­ting up a work truck with the right tools to get the job done is the best way to ser­vice the needs of any job, and also main­tain good profit mar­gins. We will look into some great lock­smith tools that will help out on the next door hard­ware job.

Back­set Relo­ca­tion Tool

A com­mon issue that lock­smiths run into is that the doors have been improp­erly prepped for hard­ware. Mis­aligned holes for the strike and hard­ware can lead to sev­eral types of lock and secu­rity mal­func­tion. A per­fect lock­smith tool for fix­ing this prob­lem is the back­set relo­ca­tion tool. It is used to “move over” an exist­ing 2−3÷8″ back­set hole to 2−3÷4″ or 2−3÷4″ to 2−3÷8″ or to cor­rect a mis-​​drilled hole. The HIT-​​23 attaches by screw­ing into the exist­ing latch face­plate mor­tise. A stan­dard hole saw (not sup­plied) can then be guided to cor­rect the bore. The HIT-​​23 is sup­plied with a drill blank to replace the hole saw pilot bit to reduce wear on the guide holes.

Door Hard­ware Drill Jig

Drill Jig

Other times, the cus­tomer may sim­ply be look­ing to add secu­rity to their home by adding a dead­bolt. PRO-​​LOCK offers a qual­ity drill jig to do just that. PRO-​​LOK decided to design the Killer Jig for many rea­sons. They felt that a pro­fes­sional high qual­ity jig was needed that was both light in actual weight while main­tain­ing the high qual­ity that pro­fes­sional installers expect. Also, ver­sa­til­ity and speed were impor­tant qual­i­ties that PRO-​​LOCK wanted to incor­po­rate into our design. The jig is made from machined alu­minum with hard­ened bush­ings and a durable pow­der coat­ing fin­ish and is easy to change back­sets. An impor­tant fea­ture when look­ing into a jig is that it has soft rub­ber pads to pro­tect the door, which the Killer Jig offers. The best results of this kit are accu­racy & most of all effi­ciency with the new Lock Bor­ing Instal­la­tion Jig. Their kit includes: Killer Jig, both 2−1÷8″ & 1−1÷2″ cross-​​bore spur bits, 1″ edge-​​bore bit, strike loca­tor, 4 dif­fer­ent heavy duty latch and face­plate mor­tise tools, unique dead­bolt height gauge and cus­tom molded car­ry­ing case. The ben­e­fits go on!

Metal Door Lock­smith Tools

Metal door hard­ware instal­la­tion can cause a few added dif­fi­cul­ties that a few lock­smith tool com­pa­nies have looked to solve. The first of these are the installing a latch on a hol­low metal door.  A latch form­ing tool, called the Pit Bull, is used to form a rec­tan­gu­lar pocket in the edge of a hol­low metal door. Appli­ca­tion of the tool is almost effort­less. Sim­ply drill the latch and cross bore holes and install the Pit Bull. Using a few turns with a wrench will squeeze an inden­ta­tion into the door’s edge. The result is a pocket that will accept both 1″ and 1 1/​8″ wide by 2 1/​4″ tall latches. After installing a lock in a steel door, a tech­ni­cian will need to locate the strike plate loca­tion. Another lock­smith tool, the HIT-​​24 loca­tor can be placed in the latch hole and use the 1/​4″ trans­fer tool to mark the exact loca­tion. This locator makes the job accu­rate, fast and easy.

These are just a few of the great lock­smith tools avail­able when ser­vic­ing res­i­den­tial or com­mer­cial doors. If you find your­self look­ing into stock­ing replace­ment hard­ware as well, see our arti­cle on Cylin­ders and Hard­ware, or visit our web­site at clk​sup​plies​.com.

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by | April 14, 2012

Locksmith Tools-​​Key Stamps

 

Every­one uses keys, and for most peo­ple, they are used every day. Keys for offices, homes, vehi­cles, and so on accu­mu­late quickly. Many of these keys may look the same and cause con­fu­sion for the user. Prop­erly iden­ti­fy­ing keys can be a very quick way to keep from con­fu­sion. There are var­i­ous ways to do this, and var­i­ous prod­uct offer­ings avail­able to iden­tify or mark keys to keep them sep­a­rated. A sim­ple lock­smith tool, such as a key stamp, is often the answer to many of these problems.

Key let­ter and num­ber stamps

Key let­ter and num­ber stamps make it pos­si­ble to iden­tify sev­eral char­ac­ters on a key. Depend­ing on the size of the key, the user can cre­ate an easy way to iden­tify the key. Key stamps can vary in size, but are pop­u­larly found in the 1⁄16th, 1⁄8th, and 3⁄32nd sizes. The smaller sizes make it pos­si­ble to add sev­eral char­ac­ters extra to a key, and the vis­i­bil­ity of the larger can ben­e­fit other users. The let­ter and num­ber stamps are avail­able in sep­a­rate sets of either num­bers or let­ters, but can also be pur­chased as a set.

Do Not Dupli­cate and Mas­ter Stamps

Other pop­u­lar stamps are those used for mark­ing “Do Not Dupli­cate” or “Mas­ter”. These stamps work per­fect for many busi­nesses that offer key cut­ting. Cus­tomers are often look­ing to mark the keys with these two phrases. Being able to offer these mark­ing on keys can often be a quick way to add profit to a key cut­ting job.

Cus­tom Key Stamps

Another prod­uct offer­ing for key stamps are cus­tom key stamps. These are made to order and an extremely effec­tive adver­tise­ment. After an order is placed, a proof of the cus­tom key stamp will be sent. These stamps can take four to six weeks to be deliv­ered, but will last for many years.

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by | April 4, 2012

Locksmith Tools-​​Impressioning

Find­ing the right lock­smith tools for impres­sion­ing locks!

One of the very basics of lock­smithing is the art of impres­sion­ing. Being able to manip­u­late a blank key by using pres­sure and move­ment is a skill every lock­smith needs to develop to be able to quickly or, in some cases, gen­er­ate a key at all. Many man­u­fac­tur­ers have looked to pro­duce qual­ity lock­smith tools in order to make for a speedy, pro­fes­sional impres­sion­ing job. Whether a tech­ni­cian is work­ing from home, shop, office, or mobile unit, hav­ing qual­ity impres­sion­ing tools can be the key to suc­cess in this area of the lock­smith trade.

Lock Impressioning File

 

File Tex­ture

To start off, a qual­ity file is an essen­tial when impres­sion­ing locks. Every lock­smith is unique when it comes to choos­ing a lock impres­sion­ing file. There are a vari­ety of options to choose from when decid­ing on a lock file. The options vary depend­ing on the file tex­ture (rougher or smoother), han­dle style, and shape (usu­ally round or pip­pin). The lock tex­ture affects how quickly the key blade can filed away. Some tech­ni­cians pre­fer the rougher files for a speed­ier job. Oth­ers enjoy a smoother file so that less mate­r­ial is taken away per stroke, often reduc­ing the chance for mistake.

File Han­dles

Han­dles can vary as far as the east is from the west. Things used for the han­dle mate­r­ial are often wood, metal, or plas­tic but the form it takes vary greatly. From drilled out golf balls to cus­tom made wooden han­dles, this part of the file varies from lock­smith to locksmith.

File Shape

The shape of the file can really be help­ful for impres­sion­ing. A pip­pin file offers one rounded side and one side with squared off cor­ners. This adds ver­sa­til­ity to the file to adapt to very sharp cuts. A round file can also be ben­e­fi­cial. With more area of the file to use where it is rounded, the file can have a longer life, and clog­ging is less of an issue.

Impres­sion­ing Hold­ing Tools

Once a tech­ni­cian has decided which file type to use, a tool has to be used to hold the key. A few man­u­fac­tur­ers have designed spe­cial made impres­sion­ing han­dles. These tools are made to securely hold the head of the key. Many of these tools clamp down, and with a com­fort­able han­dle, the tool makes it pos­si­ble to apply the needed pres­sure to leave marks on the key. Other tech­ni­cians pre­fer the sim­plic­ity of lock­ing pliers.

If you want more infor­ma­tion on lock impres­sion­ing, please see our fit­ting keys by impres­sion­ing man­ual!

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by | April 3, 2012

Locksmith Tools-​​Keeping Organized

 

Approach­ing a lock or secu­rity prod­uct with­out the cor­rect tools can be frus­trat­ing, time con­sum­ing, or worse yet, profit drain­ing. In a ser­vice dri­ven indus­try where the quicker the work can be done, the more prof­itable a job can be, a lock­smith tool that can more than dou­ble the speed of a job is invalu­able. The cost of the tool is often paid for in only a sin­gle job. This can be espe­cially true when a lack of orga­ni­za­tion is needed. A tool that improves effi­ciency with orga­ni­za­tion can be very use­ful. Few things aggra­vate a tech­ni­cian more than their tools being lost or misplaced.

Pin­ning Tray

One of these pop­u­lar lock­smith tools to keep things orga­nized is a pin­ning tray. The pin­ning tray is offered to orga­nize pins and springs while key­ing mul­ti­ple locks. Dur­ing large re-​​keying jobs, speed is dras­ti­cally improved when the tech­ni­cian is able to orga­nize the lock pins into sep­a­rate piles for each cham­ber of the lock. This prob­lem was alle­vi­ated when sev­eral man­u­fac­tur­ers began to offer pin­ning trays. These trays allowed neat piles of pins and springs to be kept in order while key­ing, allow­ing for effort­less lock pin­ning. Unfor­tu­nately, all of the offer­ings only allowed for a few pins to fit into each slot. This made for many refills dur­ing larger jobs. CLK Sup­plies has recently intro­duced their own pin­ning tray, which has deeper pin pock­ets to allow many more pins to be filled in each one. The expanded abil­i­ties of the CLK Sup­plies Pin­ning Tray have proven to be the great­est way to make large jobs eas­ier. Another added fea­ture of this pin­ning tray is the addi­tional cham­bers in each row, seven specif­i­cally for seven pin IC Core locks.

Work Mat

On top of the pin­ning tray, another great lock­smith tool that aids in orga­ni­za­tion is the LAB Pin Work Mat. This is a great lock­smith tool to use whether you are in the work­shop or work truck. It has very user friendly fea­tures, with lock­smiths in mind. The molded mat design has hun­dreds of raised grooves that hold the pins in place, rather than allow­ing springs, fol­low­ers, cylin­ders, and pins to roll around the work area. Another added fea­ture for smaller key­ing jobs is an area that is num­bered and sep­a­rated for pins to be orga­nized dur­ing the rekey process. The LAB Pin Work Mat is a proven win­ner that many lock­smiths won’t do with­out. It only takes a few spilled pins on the floor to real­ize the value of a qual­ity work surface.

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by | March 21, 2012

Yale Key Blanks

Yale® Com­mer­cial Locks and Hard­ware, with plant oper­a­tions in Lenoir City, Ten­nessee, devel­ops and man­u­fac­tures a com­pre­hen­sive line of door hard­ware and locks, includ­ing an exten­sive range of mor­tise and cylin­dri­cal locks, exit devices, door closers, electro­mechan­i­cal prod­ucts and key sys­tems. Through the strong back­ing of ASSA ABLOY, Yale has devel­oped many influ­en­tial locks through the years. Their locks and keys have been used in every­thing from com­mer­cial build­ings to small, cam style locks. The keys blanks that Yale has uti­lized for these locks have been repro­duced by many after­mar­ket key blank man­u­fac­tur­ers. As more of these after­mar­ket man­u­fac­tur­ers have repro­duced their locks and keys, the appli­ca­tions used for it have expanded.

Yale Key Blanks

It is safe to say that any lock­smith or safety tech­ni­cian will be well stocked on the Yale Y1, Y11, Y12, Y13, and Y14 key blanks. These key blanks, espe­cially the Y11-Y14 keys, are pos­si­bly the most ver­sa­tile keys ever made. Few other keys have been used by such a vari­ety of locks. Cam locks, RV locks, res­i­den­tial locks, ignitions…the list goes on for the locks these Yale key blanks fit.

There are a few older Yale key blanks that do not see quite the diver­sity of the above men­tioned locks, but do still remain pop­u­lar on some locks. These Yale key blanks, such as the Y220 (also see the Ilco 999B or JMA YA-​​60D) and Y4 /​ 998 /​ YA-​​80D.

Yale Lock Pins

Another help­ful resource when ser­vic­ing Yale locks, are Yale lock pins. See our selec­tion of Yale bot­tom pins and Yale top pins. You can also explore uni­ver­sal pin­ning kit options at our blog, Which Uni­ver­sal Pin­ning Kit is Right For You?

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by | March 21, 2012

SC1 Key Blanks

Schlage has long been a leader in both com­mer­cial and res­i­den­tial secu­rity hard­ware. Their SC1 key blank design can be found on locks around the world in huge quan­ti­ties. From store­fronts to pad­locks, an SC1 key­way may be the most ver­sa­tile key­way in the secu­rity indus­try. Because of this diver­sity, there is a large demand for the SC1 key blank. After­mar­ket key blank man­u­fac­tur­ers only can keep up by pro­duc­ing these key blanks by the tens of thou­sands. Not only does Schlage make locks using this key­way, but a vari­ety of after­mar­ket lock man­u­fac­tur­ers have used the SC1 keyway.

Vary­ing Part Numbers

Schlage, like Kwik­set (see our arti­cle on KW1 Key­blanks), has seen the after­mar­ket indus­try take off with their key blank design, but also con­fuse the mar­ket by adding many dif­fer­ent part num­bers for the same key. The list below dis­plays the most pop­u­lar key blank manufacturer’s SC1 part numbers.

Key Blank Design

All of these dif­fer­ent part num­bers can be con­fus­ing, how­ever know­ing the design of the pop­u­lar key by look­ing at it can tremen­dously speed up the process of iden­ti­fy­ing the key. Most man­u­fac­tur­ers also keep the same gen­eral design for the head of an SC1 key blank. Schlage has used this stepped head design for many years, and can quickly iden­tify the man­u­fac­turer as Schlage. Some cau­tion should be used how­ever, for Schlage has other key­ways uti­liz­ing the same key blank head design. An exam­ple of this would be the SC9 key.

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by | March 20, 2012

KW1 Key Blanks

The most pop­u­lar key blank in the world!

Kwik­set locks have been a pop­u­lar choice in res­i­den­tial hard­ware for decades. The key blank used for these locks, the KW1, have, by default, grown in pop­u­lar­ity as well. More and more peo­ple con­tinue to pur­chase and rent out apart­ments, houses, and con­dos with this key find­ing its way onto their key ring. As time has gone on and the pop­u­lar­ity of these KW1 key blanks has risen, the after­mar­ket lock indus­try has fol­lowed closely. The brands mak­ing replace­ment parts and acces­sories for Kwik­set locks or adapt­able cylin­ders for com­mer­cial locks have used the KW1 key­way. Many knock off brand locks are using KW1 key­ways in their design.

 

Grow­ing KW1 Part Numbers

The most pop­u­lar key blank in the world today, the KW1, has not only been man­u­fac­tured by Kwik­set. The list of key blank man­u­fac­tur­ers around the world who uti­lize the KW1 design has grown to be lengthy. Some of the dif­fi­culty with this is the vari­ances in part num­ber.  Many of the dif­fer­ent after­mar­ket brands use dif­fer­ent part num­bers for the same key. Here is a list of dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers and their part number.

With all of these part num­bers, it can be con­fus­ing to match up the key. How­ever, the key­way itself is very dis­tinc­tive, and the head of the KW1 key often looks the same regard­less of after­mar­ket manufacturer.

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by | March 16, 2012

LAB Lock Pins and Tools

In 1956, LAB was born in a small shop in Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut with a sin­gle rev­o­lu­tion­ary pin machine. The design was refined and LAB built eleven more machines. Now, LAB is the largest man­u­fac­turer of qual­ity lock tum­bler pins and kits. Their qual­ity prod­ucts are ser­vic­ing major lock man­u­fac­tur­ers and secu­rity pro­fes­sion­als world­wide. Through the years, LAB has changed the indus­try by cre­at­ing qual­ity prod­ucts to assist tech­ni­cians ser­vice locks from start to finish.

LAB Lock Pins

Their qual­ity LAB lock pins, where the com­pany found their start, are the flag­ship of the com­pany. They offer a wide vari­ety of pins to ser­vice the demands of dif­fer­ent manufacturer’s locks, espe­cially find­ing ben­e­fits from spe­cial­ized lock pins that no other com­pany is offer­ing. Exam­ples of these are their high secu­rity spool pins and ser­rated pins. By adding these top pins, it becomes much more dif­fi­cult to pick a lock. They oper­ate very sim­i­larly by adding a “false shear line”.

Uni­ver­sal Pin­ning Kits

Another qual­ity prod­uct from LAB are their uni­ver­sal pin­ning kits. When LAB first intro­duced their rev­o­lu­tion­ary sin­gle level uni­ver­sal kits in 1974, Bob Labbe would attend trade shows and throw the kits on the ground to show off its leak proof design. In 1977, LAB copy­righted the .003 Uni­ver­sal Pin Sys­tem pro­vid­ing a smooth oper­at­ing, accu­rate pin sys­tem. Now, LAB offers many dif­fer­ent key­ing kits for spe­cific types of lock key­ing and ser­vic­ing. Two of these, the LAB Super Wedge Uni­ver­sal Kit and the Smart Wedge Uni­ver­sal Kit are great pack­ages that give lock­smiths and tech­ni­cians pur­chas­ing options when buy­ing a uni­ver­sal kit. The Smart Wedge Kit con­tains the most com­monly used lock pins, so that there is no dead stock. The Super Wedge Kit on the other hand is a bit larger, but con­tains sev­eral more pin sizes, as well as a drawer for lock ser­vic­ing tools.

Lock­smith Tools

LAB has expanded its prod­uct line to include many other tools for lock ser­vic­ing. One of their most pop­u­lar tools is key gauges. These sim­ple but effec­tive tools accu­rately read the height of a key. This assists the tech­ni­cian when ser­vic­ing a lock to know what size of pins to use. Their fol­low­ers and IC Core Annexhave added func­tions to improve effi­ciency when ser­vic­ing locks.
Whether you are ser­vic­ing a sin­gle lock or rekey­ing many per day, LAB offers many prod­ucts that are worth explor­ing and dis­cov­er­ing the ways LAB can assist you.

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by | March 7, 2012

Ford Key Blanks

Ford, unlike many man­u­fac­tur­ers, has kept with a fairly uni­form and sim­ple key design through the years. Except for years dur­ing tran­si­tion and a few for­eign model excep­tions, Ford key blanks are fairly easy to iden­tify dis­cern based on a gen­eral year and model descrip­tion. For those inter­ested in cut­ting Ford key blanks, we hope to go through a broad range of Ford vehi­cles so that a list of needed key blanks can be collected.

Late Model Vehicles

Many of the mod­ern Ford vehi­cles use transpon­der keys, most of which are still using the H75 key­way with a spe­cific chip for the vehi­cle.  It is a great idea to offer your cus­tomer a work­ing door key on an H75 blank if they are not will­ing to pay for a transpon­der key. The only excep­tions to the transpon­der key are some fleet vehi­cles that were optioned with­out a transpon­der igni­tion. Before the transpon­der key rev­o­lu­tion, Ford had moved nearly all its vehi­cles to the H75 key blank. There were a few carry over vehi­cles left on the H60/​H67 (the H67 has the same key­way as the H60, but has a larger head). It is a great idea to stock the H75 key blank along with the H60 key blank for late model Ford vehicles.

Late 1960’s through the 1990’s

By the time of the late 1960’s, Ford had switched all of its vehi­cles over to the dou­ble sided H50 and H51 igni­tion, door, and trunk keys. The H51 served as the igni­tion key and some­times a door key. The H50 key would oper­ate the other locks on the vehi­cle. The only changes between mod­els were whether the igni­tion and door were keyed the same with a sep­a­rate trunk/​glove box key or the igni­tion was on a com­pletely sep­a­rate key from the door/​trunk/​glove box key. This key group­ing lasted for sev­eral decades on the Ford vehi­cles. By the late 1980’s, some vehi­cles began switch­ing over to the longer H60 key blank and was used for all the vehicle’s locks, no longer need­ing a sep­a­rate key for the door or trunk.

The Early Years

Ford’s early years up until the early 1960’s may be the only period of time it can be chal­leng­ing to find the cor­rect key blank for Ford vehi­cles. Lit­er­a­ture and soft­ware are fairly lim­ited back to this time period, mak­ing the biggest chal­lenge of all. There are sev­eral old key blanks that were used dur­ing these years, nearly all being sin­gle sided. Of all the keys used, the H27 Ford key blank may be the most pop­u­lar and fits great­est num­ber of vehi­cles. This would be the most valu­able key to stock if a shop wanted to keep older style Ford keys avail­able to their clients.

With the pop­u­lar­ity of Ford vehi­cles and few vari­a­tions of key blanks, it is a great oppor­tu­nity for lock­smiths and busi­ness own­ers to offer Ford key cut­ting ser­vices to their cus­tomers. For a broader dis­cus­sion on auto­mo­tive key cut­ting see our blog at http://​www​.clk​sup​plies​.com/​l​o​c​k​s​m​i​t​h​-​b​l​o​g​/​2​0​1​2​/​0​1​/​0​7​/​a​u​t​o​m​o​t​i​v​e​-​k​e​y​-​c​u​t​t​ing.

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