correspondence schools?

[boxeagle]

I am thinking of enrolling in one of the correspondence schools for locksmithing and was wondering if there was anyone who might be able to give a practical assessment between the courses and prices that might make one more worthwhile than the others. I have read multiple threads about the foley belsaw course, but not much about any other course out there. I have looked into PCDI, Pen-foster, Stratford, and FB. Any suggestions or advice? thanks.

[MarkC]

I've done Penn-Foster, FB, and Stratford.

Stay away from Statford; all they give you is a few photocopied chapters from Bill Philips "Master Locksmithing" book. Just buy the book.

Penn-Foster (or ICS in Canada) is fairly comprehensive and comes with a few tools and a really nasty heavy key machine at the end. It's a decent value for the price.

The FB course was the best of the three. It comes with a lot of tools, locks, and a pretty reliable key machine (I still use it for manual duplicating). They also sent a Ilco pick gun when I finished.

I'm by no means an expert compared to most of the guys on here, but I'd strongly suggest doing FB if you are going to do one course only.

Mark