Impressioning

[chrisjc33]

I was looking at doing a bit of Impressioning just as another method to gain entery
I have read up on it but not sure if it’s worth it,what I mean is is it gonna take a long time to master and I don’t wanna be at some ones door for an hour filing the key?.

so what's your Impression of this?

[p1ckf1sh]

I was looking at doing a bit of Impressioning just as another method to gain entery
I have read up on it but not sure if it’s worth it,what I mean is is it gonna take a long time to master and I don’t wanna be at some ones door for an hour filing the key?.

I am not a locksmith, but a hobbyist newbie and I looked upon impressioning the same way. Sure, interesting, but hard on the lock, lots of work, and what do you get? A picked lock? No, a key to unlock the lock with.

But I suggest you read up on foil impression. There are some threads here and over at security.org you can find some excerpts of the LSS book that give a bit more insight. If you have the materials ready (comb pick, foil, etc.) it is said that you can have a lock open in less than a minute.

I have not done it myself yet, gotta wait for the Dremel to come back from the repair to make a comb pick, but it sure sounds nice...

[CapnCurry]

From what I've read on the subject, the idea is that impressioning saves a step in the lock servicing process. If the key is locked in the house, better to pick the lock... but if the key is *lost* lost - like, down a sewer drain - impressioning the lock gets you into the house, and tells you what cuts to make a replacement key with. If you've just picked the lock, you still have to disassemble the lock to read the pinning.

I say "from what I've read," because I have a very, very difficult time impressioning. I'm thinking about investing in a cheating system, where you coat the key blank with flourescent ink and look at it through a blacklight visor... the bound pins will scrub off the ink, and leave glaring spots on the key to file by.

Meanwhile, I just pick and disassemble.

[quacking_duck]

I find it useful, for example when there's a lost keys situation on a Euro and the customer asks me to change the lock. Sometimes the customer will let me keep the keyless lock if they haven't got spares and it's no use to them. Rather than strip the Euro, I'd impression and make keys for it on the bench for practice and possibly use as a recon or a free replacement.

However, I wouldn't be skilled enough as yet to impression a cylinder at the door as it would take me far too long and it may well be dark, raining, snowing etc.