My very own clam kit

[Emrys]

Let me start off by saying I AM the cheapest person I know But, I also thought that this might be a fun project to see if I could get it to work. Here's the materials:

stationary box - like 75 cents
play-doe (blue ) - about 60 cents
tablespoon cup - maybe a buck or two
plumber solder - about 3 bucks
file - 5 bucks, at the most

Using these materials, I made quite a nice clam kit. I'm not sure if the commercial kits required any filing, but my key copy did. just a little bit of filing & it fit in nicely. All of this for well under 10 bucks.

-Rob

[jgor]

Nice! quite a bit cheaper than our club's kit, and just as effective from the look of it

[Emrys]

thanks I'm not sure if the bismuth that comes with regular kits is easier to work with, but the solder wasn't that bad, especially for the price.

-Rob

[dougfarre]

Rob, I hope you don't mind our club copying your exact clam kit for teaching our members. That is really awesome! Could you post a little more details about your process.. Like what kind of solder you used, etc... I think our guys will really like this. Thanks!

[dougfarre]

Also, what is a stationary box?

[mitch.capper]

that certainly was quite the creative clam kit:) I may just have to try my own now. I would Assume the most important factors being the clay/putty and teh case that effect the result.

I think the best thing may be to try with some other types to see what works best.

[ady1989]

Nice work! I'm going to make myself a clam set very soon! Thanks for the inspiration.

[Servalite6354]

Excellent!!

[Jaakko]

Thank you for the inspiration, I already from the other topic got inspired to try this out with some basic solder but now that you have tried it, I'm going to make this too and make some Abloy keys with it and see how they turn out

Excellent guide, just fill us on the information on what the box was you used and what sort of solder is plumbers solder? Lead-free? Is there a known melting point or your solder or what you used to melt it? A candle?

[Emrys]

Thanks for the replies. Glad you guys liked it. As far as coping, please do. I hope it works as good for you guys as it has for me. I'll take some more pictures of everything tomorrow. But, as far as the solder, it's just regular plumbing solder that you can get at Home Depot or Lowes. It's lead free and the melting point is the same as regular solder (370F i think). It's pretty much the same as regular solder, just without a flux core. The stationary kit is just a plastic box you can find at Wal-Mart or Office Max. I got a 3in1 kit, and just cut one off. As promised, there will be more pictures to follow. Glad you guys liked it

-Rob

[cryptonic]

hey... 2 things. first i was on my way back but i will get you next time bro. and secondly when you said it looked ghetto as hell, you weren't playing!!!

[Emrys]

Okay, here's the better picture of the stationary kit & solder. As stated before, it's just regular plumbing solder that I picked up at Home Depot. The stationary box is just some crapy plastic box that holds paper clips, erasers or whatever.

As for the heat I used to melt the solder, I used a propane torch, but I'm sure you could get creative with just about anything. I'm sure the kitchen stove would work lol. If you really wanted to go Ghetto Fab, you could use one of those torch lighters. It was working for me, but it took too long. So, I opted for the propane torch. I'm guessing one of those mini soldering torches from crutchfield might work too. Anything to get the metal up to 370.

-Rob

[Stray]

i will get you next time bro.

Arggggggggggg how I hate the half word "bro" and any other bro-isms.

next I'm going to start hearing "hey guy" what's you doing "guy".

[FFVison]

Not to sound like a total noob, but what is a clam kit and what is it used for?

[jgor]

Not to sound like a total noob, but what is a clam kit and what is it used for?

A clam kit is one way to duplicate a key, ideally when you only have access to the original key for a short period of time. The clam kit consists of a folding box with clay (play-doh in this kit) on either side, and some sort of metal with a low melting point. you place the key into the box and press it together, forming a mold of the key. Then you take the key out, press it back together and pour the heated liquid metal into the mold so it will take the shape of the original key. The resulting key will be weak and you shouldn't use it in the actual lock, but it does give you something to use to make a proper duplicate key, without having to have the original key.