Starting my own Locksmithing biz need to find good supplier

[jasonthekey]

I'm getting ready to start my own locksmithing business Poston Locksmithing LLC and I need to get a good and knowledgeable lock/locksmith supplier if anyone can help me out or point me in the right direction it would be very much appreciated. and if anyone is currently a locksmith or the owner of a locksmith company and have aome advice that as well would be appreciated.

[Tyler J. Thomas]

IDN Armstrongs, Clark Security, SDI, Southern Specialties, HL Flake, Lockmasters, McDonald Dash, etc. I could go on all day.

The best advice I can give you is to look for a distributor that has a warehouse in your general area (>50 miles) so that you can at least drive to it for general parts that you don't stock. It's also good idea to use multiple distributors so that you have the option to shop around as well as have backups if your preferred distributor is out of stock on an item that you need ASAP.

So, are you near any major cities? I can give a better recommendation based off of your location.

[jasonthekey]

I'm located in Richmond, VA

[globallockytoo]

subscribe to TNL or LL. Many suppliers advertise in there.

[Eyes_Only]

Depends on what type of service you plan on providing, Commercial, Residential or Automotive but I've always had a great experience with HL Flake and LockMasters. National Auto Lock, American Auto Lock, Allied and The Locksmith Store are also great companies with a knowledgeable staff when it comes to almost anything automotive.

[TigerDragon]

You can also check the yellow pages for Locksmith Suppliers. There are a couple near where I live. Also, some suppliers/distributors are associated with Clearstar, and you might be able to find and order from them via the Clearstar service.

[globallockytoo]

Clearstar?

[zeke79]

Clearstar?

A locksmith forum..

Zeke79

[globallockytoo]

Clearstar?

A locksmith forum..

Zeke79

I heard it was a base for ALOA yes men!

[TigerDragon]

Clearstar?

A locksmith forum..

Zeke79

I heard it was a base for ALOA yes men!

Oh for crying out loud. I may or may not be. I wouldn't know, since I've not attempted to sign up, yet. Political views aside, it's one more avenue of potential distributors.

[zeke79]

I heard it was a base for ALOA yes men!

Hehehe . All things aside it was a good resource for questions I had on quite a bit of automotive stuff before I let my membership expire. I may sign up again after surgery and I get back on my feet. Problems with programming keys, problems with commercial hardware I had not worked on before etc whatever I asked I always got a good answer. I tried to work on my own toward the end of my apprenticeship just like I would when on my own so I tried to draw from the resources that would always be available to me to see just how far I had come in my education. Since being delayed from going out on my own due to medical reasons, I have taken the apprenticeship back up a bit just to keep things fresh in my mind and to continue learning even more from day to day. Most things done during the medical problems were repairing hardware, troubleshooting hardware, picking locks that the lockie I worked with could not pick, disassembling SFIC locks and decoding control key. Alot of stuff like that along with trying to troubleshoot electronic locks such as the omni lock series, cobra locks etc.

It has been great doing an apprenticeship for such a great locksmith. I have learned alot from him and one of the many great things about him was that I could also teach him things I knew. He never talked down to me for doing that and he was always interested in what I had to say. He really is a great guy to work with. If there was enough business in town for us to run two vans I would just go to work for him and be very content working a long time in the trade before finally retiring from a very fulfilling career. To be honest I would love to go to work for a lockie in a bigger city. I think it would be great to do another short apprenticeship with the lockie from the bigger city before taking over a van of my own.

Anyhow, clearstar is a locksmith forum. Whether or not it is full of aloa yes men or not I don't know as I never engaged in any off topic conversation in what I saw as the more political side of the trade. If I wanted to talk politics I would have chosen a different career .

Later,

Zeke79

[Tyler J. Thomas]

Yeah Clearstar is top notch. Guaranteed that there are locksmiths on that site from your area that would be more than happy to share reviews of distributors in the area. Probably the best resource for a locksmith these days.

[Curleylocky]

Try out Clark Security this company is simply awesome, well it is much better if you will have
a contact with a supplier that will give you discounts and freebies, well there are so many companies now a days that are giving some deals like this, all you have to do is search and
make a good deal with them.

[Eyes_Only]

Clark is probably one of the biggest distributors that carries almost everything but they tend to be a bit more pricey, although their large selection makes it worth it sometimes.

Another option would be maybe Intermountain or US Lock, but US Lock at least carries more generic and basic stuff compared to Clark.

[jasonthekey]

Depends on what type of service you plan on providing, Commercial, Residential or Automotive but I've always had a great experience with HL Flake and LockMasters. National Auto Lock, American Auto Lock, Allied and The Locksmith Store are also great companies with a knowledgeable staff when it comes to almost anything automotive.

I plan offering resiential lockout, broken key removal, key duplications, rekeying/keying alike, lock installations , burglary repairs, security analysis and upgrades, as far as automotive i plan on just doing lockouts broken key removals and some basic key duplications (meaning I'm not doing transponders vats and laser track keys) and as far as commercial services the same as residential as well as master keying and safe combo changes.