by cledry » 13 Aug 2015 22:38
I don't like these machines, they just feel a bit lightweight, and it is easy to cut a bad key if you don't take your time, but I rebuild and calibrate a lot of them for various hotels in the area. I actually did one today. They had snapped the adjusting dial screw inside the casting. We repair so many that I had the parts on hand. The machine was also noisier than usual so I adjusted the motor angle and pulleys and it sounded like new. The ease of calibration is the only thing I like about these machines. Take the blanks as above and adjust accordingly, make sure it grazes the key equally on both ends. Then test. I use American padlocks to test as they are fairly precise. The one I did today was still usable after 4 generations, I stopped at this point as I could tell the next generation would work albeit not very well.
Jim