Barras keys

One of the first companies to help us out with a dropbox was Mearns hardware in Laurencekirk. Sadly due to increasing costs and falling business they had to close their doors. One of the services they offered was key cutting which I have taken over.

I purchased the two machines for doing mortice style keys and cylinder style keys as well as a huge amount of blanks of varying usefulness. Want a key cut for a 1980’s volvo then I’ve got one in stock.

How does the service work?

The first stumbling block is I don’t have a shop which is the traditional way for someone to get keys cut.

So we have to find other ways

At the initial moment I won’t be offering key cutting at the pop-ups as I’d need another trailer just for the machines and the blanks as they half filed the back room of Mearns hardware. This may change as I sort the blanks into popular ones and rare ones. Then I will be able to take the popular ones along to pop-ups.

For the mobile workshop I might be able to occasionally offer this if you have alot of keys to be cut of only a few types.

I am going to operate in 4 ways

  • Drop off at base.

    • You bring the keys to base which is up a farm track behind Kineff as per sharpening don’t just turn up as I will probably be out mobile sharpening. I will then either do them while you wait or i will let you know once they are done.

  • Drop off at a pop-up

    • If you bring keys along to one of the pop-up events that can found on the calender then i can take the keys and your details and return them at a later date

  • Collect and return.

    • Contact us and the next time we are passing we can call in and collect the sample keys and then we can get them back to you a few days later along with the new keys

  • Drop boxes

    • We operate various drop boxes around the local area. These can be found here. Drop off your sample keys there and fill in a dropbox form and we can collect and return normally within a week. I’d advise putting your keys in an envelope

Costs

For myself as a business the costs beyond the intial investment come from two basic areas. Firstly there is the cost of the blanks. A typical blank doesn’t cost very much typically about 50 pence for a common one up to a few pounds for the rarer ones.

The other cost is my time and fuel for moving stuff around

I can see costs being about a fiver per key with reduction if you are wanting multiples

That said I am a strong believer in the barter system and have cut keys for pulled pork rolls

So how does key cutting work?

There is two parts of the operation

Firstly you have identify the key blank which is harder than it looks as their is hundreds of different lengths and profiles of keys. if you are lucky then you can have a nice and obvious clue

The best you can hope for is a nice big fat key blank code

This is an ER-2D which a quick search on a key makers website tells you all

Go look here

If there isn’t an obvious code or makers mark then it gets a bit more difficult

You have to go over to the key profile gauges of which there is many

And you keep sticking the key in holes until you get a good match

Working from that you can work out what key blank to use

Finally there is the books

There is many many books where you work through pages of codes and pictures to try and identify the correct blank

Once the correct blank has been identified then it is off to the key cutting machine which most people would off seen before

It works by taking the sample key and following the profile with a point which then drives the blank along a cutter so the same profile is cut.

What next for key cutting?

The first job will be to properly catalogue all the key blanks as in addition to the 6 racks pictured there is also two sets of drawers and a couple of baskets of blanks. This will let me both make it quicker to find oddball keys but it will also put into my mind what there is.

As a further progression I might do some training as a locksmith as I’m already working out of a mobile workshop, i’m very mechanically minded and I already have and quite good knowledge of locks and doors. I could also move into cutting keys for modern cars but I do considered most modern electronics etc to be witchcraft