by unjust » 17 Nov 2006 17:22
so i'm strolling through the conference exhibit hall yesterday, and discover a vendor with 6" ~1/16" thick long alluminum rulers as swag. i immediately saw these for what they were which was material to cut flat blanks out of to impression the lever lock on my hatbox/locker. "take as many as you want, the show's almost over" ended up with me with a fist full.
several hours later i'm sitting at my locker with the set of exquesite 99c chinese needle files i had in the trunk, a small end nipper, and a nice big flat file (hadnt had time to stop at home).
well, you'd think that for 99c at fleet farm you'd get a quality set of 10 files, but no, not really. long story short, 1 blank shaped, i've determined pretty well what the key shape is, and where the business part of it sits.
over the next 2 weeks i'll be looking for a retailer that sells decent small files, and making up several blanks as the first one is clearly showing signs of metal fatigue where it's been twisted in the keyway, but it's softer than the brass involved, so a winner as far as i'm concerned to impression this bugger.
back at the locker in 2 weeks, more then.
