nickel silver & brass, composition and properties

[WOT]

I contacted Ilco, but I got no answer.

Does anyone know the typical blending used for keyblank grade nickel-silver and brass alloys? What about the relative difference in strength?

All Ilco site has to offer is "nickel silver is stronger" .

[Afisch]

Nicel silver is Copper and Nickel, usualy with some other element added in small quantities. It is indeed stronger than brass and also usualy suffers less deformations. Im not sure about it doing damage to the brass cylinders of locks. I think it can become quite sharp.

[Raccoon]

I remember being told that nickel-silver blanks, while stronger, prefer to break before bending. If you're looking for BKs, I'd just go with all-brass keys, but avoid the cheaper soft brass-zinc alloy keys.

[quicksilver]

I was also told that NS blanks were stronger. But later I found that there are circumstances that made specific differences in brass keys, etc. As we import more and more stuff from China the sourcing of the basic materials becomes a matter for concern. The Mainland Chinese brass that is used often is seriously junk brass which may not only contain small amounts of extraneous metals (lead and antimony) but may also have steps left out of the production process (making them quite inconsistent).
Someone I know once had a deal with Hillman as they used to put together key blanks at a few cents, etc. But when the boxes started being stamped "China", the pill was swallowed and other sources were found. Some key designs are just set up to be delicate and cheap materials are going to be a real pain.

[Eyes_Only]

I have nothing against China but the world has to take more pride in their own products or else we're all going to be going to China for everything within the next 50 years.

[WOT]

Raccoon, please elaborate on what you mean by brass zinc alloy, as brass is an alloy of zinc and copper.

There are many types of brass and there are many types of nickel silver.

Key blank nickel silver has yellowish color while some nickel silver looks silver in color.

[Raccoon]

I really don't know that much about metallurgy to describe what I mean. I guess I'm just talking about dark brass that feels hard and heavy compared to bright shiny brass that you can bend easily between your fingers.

[quicksilver]

Check out the terms: * Cupronickel & * Britannia metal, both of which are part of the family of "nickel-silver". Basically the greater proportion of nickel, the harder the material. the greater proportion of copper the more flexible the material.

A key needs to twist (generally) and at the union of the bow and the blade is the weak-link in it's construction. A key may also need to resist "dulling" from insertion past pins, etc. If the construction of the pinned composition is complex or the pins themselves are tough, the key may need to be hard itself to resist rounding quickly with usage (witness a well used automobile key blade).

This obviously becomes very important with key-ways that incorporate a security feature like angled or beveled blade-pin contact features (Primus, etc). And it's getting to be a big deal in current car ignitions locks as well. As it stands the relative hardness and wear features are too difficult to gage as no unifying organization (like ANSI) has a great deal of input in key manufacture. And since we are now getting a lot of goods from Mainland China, there is no way to tell what is in the metals (brass or cupro-nickel).