Took a look at some of David Calvin's books.
He is a mobile locksmith in the Nashville, TN area. He started out in the late 1980's taking the Foley-Belsaw course (which he said was not that useful in the field). He currently does some commercial work, does not work on autos, and suggests that beginners focus on residential. Nashville is growing area +1M population in the surrounding areas, so maybe there is sufficient market there to support this approach. He is actually about 45 minutes south-east of Nashville (from my wife's home town, coincidently). So maybe he picks up the area to that side of Nashville without competing directly against the locksmiths focusing only on Davidson county (the metro area). He drives a high MPG compact car and seems to put on a lot of miles each day. He has a website
http://abestlocksmith.blogspot.com. It is hard to tell if he is very active as a locksmith anymore or if he is making a living selling books.
The
Dollar a Minute book has recommendations on starting a residential locksmith business. Has some approaches to what works and what does not for marketing. It has information on scammers and some ideas to counteract them. The book was written in 2011 but has been updated since then. Suggests pricing strategies and the sorts of jobs to specialize in. For someone looking to get into locksmithing it is probably worth it, but I am not a locksmith so that is a guess on my part.
The
Residential Lock Repair Coach goes mainly over Kwikset, Schlage, and a few other residential locksets. Common problems and solutions and how to rekey. I'm not sure that it covers the basics real well, I would suggest a more general book first, then this one to catch up on things learned from experience. I think it would be useful to someone starting out. It is not a long book, it is hard to count the pages on a Kindle, but it is someone someone could read in 20 minutes or so.
The
Locksmith's Commercial Glass book focuses on Adams-Rite locks and common problems they have. Again, not a long book, but has real work experience that would probably be useful to someone starting out.
If anyone reads any of the others please post your observations.
