Show us your keys!

[shutterstuff]

That is a very nice looking setup you have there, however I would strongly you install a high amperage lug type fuse (100 or so) between the positive terminal of your battery and the conductors that are now connected to it.

Most people cannot imagine the amount of current a small lead acid storage battery can deliver into a bolted short, having a primary fuse at the battery terminal can be the difference between a pop and a flash or watching you van burn to the ground.

Wayne

Follow the fat red cable from the battery terminal very closely and you will find it hooks to a 100 amp ANL fuse block screwed to the floor. The smaller cables are the charge wires, 1 from the solar charger and the other from the 4 stage AC charger. I am not done yet cleaning up the wiring, I do not have a cutter for the big cables and I have too much wire coiled up. I eventually want a 2kw Pure Sine wave inverter. The LED lights buzz on the inverter and not on shore power. It gets rather annoying after a while.

[cledry]

I will have to get photos one of these days. However we go the opposite way of Octops and others who downsized. If we get a customer who comes in for a single odd key we will buy 10 and price the 1 cut key high so that we are keeping the customer happy by providing a rare key and also adding to that odd stock. Word of mouth travels fast and you become known as the shop that has the odd keys. We are fortunate to have Blue Dog Keys in town, so we can get the stuff fast.

We stock sectional keys for any buildings we service. We never take the short cut that some "locksmiths" use of substituting the master slide for a sectional key. I know shops that only stock the Yale G for example and the S. If that is their mantra then I can only imagine how they MK locks.

Common keys we buy 500 lots minimum, but Clark and IDN stock them and are a few minutes away, neuter bow keys we buy by 1000 - 3000 lots because they take forever to arrive.

The last shop I worked had had even more odd keys. We would ship blanks and cut keys all over the world for obscure scooters, micro cars and antique and classic cars. This shop doesn't quite go that far, we are not well stocked on bit keys or luggage keys.

When you send a customer elsewhere for a key that is an opportunity for your competition to pick up your customer. Of course it might just be a one time sale for 1 or 2 keys, but it could be a potentially larger sale down the road. Just my 2 cents.

[shutterstuff]

This is my huge dilemma, I have all of these keys, many of them rare and old and no retail store front. My business is to new to support rent let alone payroll. I got a call yesterday from someone wanting a spare key cut for their Piper Airplane. I had to turn them down.

[billdeserthills]

This is my huge dilemma, I have all of these keys, many of them rare and old and no retail store front. My business is to new to support rent let alone payroll. I got a call yesterday from someone wanting a spare key cut for their Piper Airplane. I had to turn them down.

I tried working out of my house, one summer & I wouldn't do that again. Customers would show up whenever they wanted to, with no regard for my privacy at all. It got so I would have to pretend I wasn't home, when they would knock on the door.

Have you considered parking your van in a convenient place, a few times a week for an hour or two, so folks could meet you? I hear flea markets and swap meets can be good revenue for key cutting also

[shutterstuff]

I tried working out of my house, one summer & I wouldn't do that again. Customers would show up whenever they wanted to, with no regard for my privacy at all. It got so I would have to pretend I wasn't home, when they would knock on the door.

Have you considered parking your van in a convenient place, a few times a week for an hour or two, so folks could meet you? I hear flea markets and swap meets can be good revenue for key cutting also

Actually, I have been in talks with the local Farmers Market. They like the idea. The problem is moving my key boards. My van is too small to hold my entire inventory of over 1600 different types of keys. A cargo trailer would work, but no room to store it at home not to mention not in the current budget!