Can A Door Key Be Made Without The Original?

Can A Door Key Be Made Without The Original? Keys and locks are made to go together. Without a matching key, it’s difficult to open a lock. But what if you don’t have the key? Can a locksmith make a key that opens your lock without the original?

Whether you’ve lost a key, acquired a new lock, or you’re just curious about how locks work, here’s everything you need to know about: Can A Door Key Be Made Without The Original?

How Locks Work

The modern keyed lock is similar to a combination lock in many ways. With a combination lock, the user has to give a specific series of numbers to the lock in order for the lock to open.

With a keyed lock, instead of supplying the numbers via a dial, you supply the numbers via a key. Each door key has hills and valleys along the vertical face at specific intervals.

When you put the key in your lock, those hills and valleys line up with small pins inside the lock body. If they’re the right height, they’ll push the pins up in just the right way, allowing the door to open.

Keys By Number

Locksmiths assign numbers, called bitting, to each height of hill and valley. There are usually 5 or 6 hills and valleys on a key. Different lock manufacturers might have different numbers of hills and valleys or different spacings along with the key.

Luckily, each manufacturer is internally consistent. This means that if you know the brand and type of your lock and you know the bitting of your key, any locksmith can quickly cut a replacement key, even if you don’t have the original.

Finding Your Bitting

Most people don’t write down the bitting on their door key. Luckily, there are a number of ways a locksmith can find this information.

First, if you have a reasonably high-quality picture of the key, you can get a very close approximation of the bitting. In some cases, you’ll be off by one or two in a couple of positions, but you can combine this with other methods to make the process very fast.

Second, many locks have this information written down somewhere. If you have the packaging or documentation that came with your lock, there’s a good chance that a locksmith can use this to figure out the correct shape for your new key.

Some manufacturers encode the bitting via a piece of information called a ‘keycode,’ which can be used by a locksmith to decode your lock.

You can sometimes find a key code on your key or even somewhere in your lock. Armed with this information, you can have a working key in minutes.

Impressioning the Lock

If your lock can’t be decoded via the above methods, the next thing to try is impression. Impressioning involves repeatedly sticking a special blank in your lock, turning it, and then taking it out and examining it carefully.

By looking at what happened to the blank, a locksmith can begin to figure out what’s going on inside of your lock and slowly cut the blank into an approximation of your key. This process takes many iterations of the same basic steps.

The locksmith will insert a key, examine it, and modify it many, many times before they’re done. Impressioning is difficult and delicate work, so the whole process might even need to be restarted if something goes wrong.

In the end, however, the locksmith will have a working door key that opens your lock. It’ll usually be made out of odd and fragile material, so they’ll make you as many real copies as you need and then give them to you.

Disassembling the Lock

In some cases, impressions are harder or more time-consuming than simply disassembling your lock and looking at what’s inside. The locksmith will start by picking your lock and then will slowly begin the process of disassembling it.

Locks are full of tiny, delicate pieces, so your locksmith will have to be careful during this process.

After it’s over, however, they’ll be able to measure the pins and figure out the exact bitting of your lock. Your lock can then be re-assembled and a new key can be made to the proper specifications.

Decoding the Lock

Some skilled locksmiths might be able to skip a few steps and determining the bitting of your lock directly. Special tools are made that can go inside of your lock and feel around. The tips of these instruments can measure the inside of your lock and find out how long each pin is.

Armed with this information, a lock expert can then figure out how to make a new door key that will open your lock.

Not everyone has the skills and tools necessary for this style of lock decoding. If you’re lucky enough to find a locksmith who can do it, however, you can save a lot of time and money.

Locks Are Pretty Secure

Based on this list, it might seem like it’s pretty easy for anyone to get a copy of your door key. In most cases, this isn’t true. All of the above processes take time, special tools, and lots of practice.

Even if someone was to purchase special locksmithing tools and try to use them on your front door, they’d be stuck there for several minutes or hours while they went through the process. It’s much faster for any would-be intruder to simply break a window.

Your normal, everyday door lock is incredibly effective at keeping out people who don’t have the right door key.

Can A Door Key Be Made Without The Original? – Conclusion

Even if you’ve lost all of the door keys that go to your lock, a locksmith can still make a new copy for you. In some cases, this might not be worth the time or trouble.

If you can replace the lock for less money than a locksmith wants to charge, there’s nothing wrong with doing that. If your lock is important, you have multiple locks with the same key, or replacing your lock would be expensive, call a locksmith and get help replacing your key.

They’ll be able to use one of the above techniques to build a working replacement and get you inside of your house or car in no time. We hope you enjoyed the article – Can A Door Key Be Made Without The Original?