"impressioning" whats your impression?

[tri-city]

i just want to ask if anyone has success with impressioning. and do they enjoy it as a way of non destuctive entry. i think personally that its probably one of the best ways of gaining entry to a cylinder lock, only when ever i impression a key it usally breaks right at the end. so i have to start again, i've thought of leaving the front pin till last, but as yet i have'nt tried my new theory. i think that it may hinder the marking of the other pins . i look forward to hearing you comments

[Romstar]

I have a fair degree of success with impressioning.

I have had a few blanks break, but never at the tip. That is a new one for me.

Romstar

[digital_blue]

when ever i impression a key it usally breaks right at the end. so i have to start again

I think he meant at the end of the process Rom.

db

[pinky]

i think he means the bow rommy, the 1st cut, especialy if a deep one weakens the key.

[Romstar]

Well, colour me embarassed.

I thinks you may be right. In which case, I have had them break there as well.

Romstar

[tri-city]

i've spent the last 2 days practising and i've found that if you leave the front pin until last the key doesn't break as often. i have impressioned about 6 or 7 locks successfully including 1 yale , a zone ( but only once 2nd time was a failure ) my 6 pin euro profile on my front door. 2 era's and about 3 birds ( they were easy ) i found that the zone was the hardest. 1 thing i found helped in my zone success was a permanent marker, i just painted the files with the marker and if it removed the ink i would file it. i think it will take a little more practice though. has anyone else got any tips?

[tsleddens]

You can also buy of make a practice lock (an open model). Then you can see what happends. I think this is a real good way of learning impressioning, it worked for me.

[bigbike]

impressioning is a fine way to open a lock. It teaches many things-patience, cussing, more patience and finally how success feels! Seriously, I think it is a great way and the customer gets a working key.

[Varjeal]

I've had success at impressioning as well, and have also had keys break near the bow because of a deep first cut and too hard of twisting.

The problem is you don't always have a choice of which pin or wafer to file last since it depends on where marks are showing.

If you break a key it generally means you are using too much twisting pressure.

[tri-city]

im going to set up a new practice board with 2, 5 pin yales and 2, 5 pin era's . i must admit the hardest one for me has been the zone 5 pin, i had success 2nd time but 3rd was a failure. i used a marker to mark were the pins grate, but this does not always work. i spoke to a safe engineer the otherday, he was saying that to impression successfully is quite hard. so i'm just going to keep practicing. i think that as a last resort before drilling, if it can be accomplished would get anyone out of a stick spot. especially as i have just put a couple of adds in the thomson local saying if i damage your locks i'll replace them free. only time will tell, and a LOT of practice

[Romstar]

Your safe engineer frined is actually quite, quite wrong. Its not hard.

However.... you knew there would be a but in there somewhere didn't you?

Some people for some reason just can't develop the technique properly. Whether it is their eyes, or they are impatient, or they are ham handed or they don't practice enough I can't be sure.

What I do know is that the more practice you put into that little art, the better you are going to be at it.

See if you can get hold of any of Hank Spicer's books or videos. He was a master at this, and has taught more people than I care to think about.

Romstar

[raimundo]

I learned to use a 2nd cut rattail file and knife edge the keyblade, that was a long time ago, now everyone says spend 40 bucks for a pippin file, I manage to run the rattail file up the sloped edges when necessary and get the same results in a deep cut. Never go to an impressioning job with just one keyblank, bring four or five, even if you can do it with the first blank, its just bad practice to come unprepared for a restart. keep any failed attempts, until the job is done, because there may be information on them that will be a clue to what might be happening, always look for bad spacing where the pins are seeming to mark on the side slopes of the cuts. and remember, while all five pins run up the slope of the tip of the key, very likely there is also a pin that sets at the top of that slope, so it is a place to watch very carefully. A ten power jewelers loupe helps, a lock that has had oil lube in it can make an oil mark that looks remarkably like a pin impression until you wipe it off. Impressioning is a sure method of opening a lock if you are having difficulty picking it, security driver pins will not interfere with impressioning. brass blanks are the best, nickel silver blanks do not impression well, on a nickel silver blank the thinning and knife edeging of the blank is necessary. You can also cut the marks at a 45 degree angle and carry the knife edge down into the key as you go, but this will produce a key that cannot be copied, still you will see the shape of the key and a copy will be cut high, and can easily be trimmed to a working key, that can be copied. Learn to impression, increase your knowlege, and that safe engineer may have been thinking of a key that has a very long blade and pins deep behind the face of the lock, on pin tumbler, this would make impressioning difficult, but since safes have lever tumblers, it wouldnt make it any harder, so he was trying to obfuscate for security through obscurity most likely.

[soul man]

it may that you are useing inexpensive blanks, i found this out to my cost some time ago, it is better to use originals

[davidgjr]

I will let you in on something that works for me and you won't break a key off at the bow. I have a set of space and depth keys ACCEPT the whole blank is cut to the proper depth. In other words there are no spaces. Pick the lock. When it is in the picked position, start at the first depth and insert the depth key into the lock going from 0 - 9 or whatever the depths of the lock are. When the pin accepts it you have the first cut. After that you will know what the cut near the bow is.

[raimundo]

David grrr has a good method of decoding the lock. if you have these depth keys and they are cut with the little points between the pins cut to flat, you can reach in and determine the depth of the deepest pin and its position in line, then you can also decode the next deepest pin that is between the entrance of the keyway and that deepest pin, and so on getting the proper cuts for all the pins that you can reach. You will not be able to decode high cuts behind deep cuts, but if you get enough information on the ones you can decode, and there are only one or two left, you know the pins are shallower than that deep pin, and with the lock picked you may be able to feel out which hidden pin is deeper, you might even be able to use a varient of the method that is in Mattblaze paper on masterkeying to develope information on the rest of the cuts, or just go to impressioning the hidden cuts.
the drawback of the method is that you need depth keys and there are so many keyways, I would recommend that you only supply yourself with the flattop depth keys for the locks that are either more common in your area, or that you find think the depth keys can help you overcome some difficulty on. Like having bump keys and the skill to use them, limit yourself to the particular keyways that most apply for you.