Aluminum Keys... why??

JD401

Hi all, this is my first real post! 🙁rofl):

I’ve been wondering what the purpose of aluminum keys were/are. I have a key ring full of old YALE keys, various logo styles, all aluminum. Obviously, they won’t rust, but neither will brass. They are light, yes, but aren’t they also brittle? I assume they will crack instead of bend.

Can anyone shed light on the purpose of aluminum keys?

Below is a photo of a small selection…

Tom Gordon

In the uk in modern times, aluminium keys have been suitable for anodising in various colours.
Our cylinder keys are normally steel, brass, cupro nickel or very occasionally a strong aluminium alloy rather than straight aluminium.
i believe that in America steel cylinder keys are less common (as copy keys) and some key machine cutters are not up to cutting steel. It may be that key cutters and clippers would work more easily or just that brass got expensive at times.

JD401 wrote
Hi all, this is my first real post! 🙁rofl):

I’ve been wondering what the purpose of aluminum keys were/are. I have a key ring full of old YALE keys, various logo styles, all aluminum. Obviously, they won’t rust, but neither will brass. They are light, yes, but aren’t they also brittle? I assume they will crack instead of bend.

Can anyone shed light on the purpose of aluminum keys?

Below is a photo of a small selection…

JD

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[unknown]

JD401

Brass being expensive is an interesting comment, as originally we thought these aluminum keys dated to WWII times (then I found a few with later logo styles). Brass was obviously needed for munitions. But wasn’t aluminum also needed for the war effort?

These particular keys are actual YALE ones, so not a cheap hardware store variety, as such. Perhaps someone has a vintage YALE catalog that lists a description?

YALE7750

All the aluminum Yale keys I’ve come across date to the 50’s and up AFAIK, I always thought it was a cost cutting measure, nothing more–aluminum keys are inferior when it comes to wear characteristics and tend to break very easily. I know at one time they made Color-Brite aluminum blanks for key makers, those also tend to break.

It’s interesting to see a lower-case Yale logo aluminum key–I had no idea they were making them up into the Eaton period. I don’t think they were making them by the time Scovill was the owner however.

JD401 wrote
Brass being expensive is an interesting comment, as originally we thought these aluminum keys dated to WWII times (then I found a few with later logo styles). Brass was obviously needed for munitions. But wasn’t aluminum also needed for the war effort?

These particular keys are actual YALE ones, so not a cheap hardware store variety, as such. Perhaps someone has a vintage YALE catalog that lists a description?

[unknown]

Billy B Edwards Jr. CML

As others have said they were probably chosen because of cost, but not until extensive research had been completed. In the early 1980’s I was asked to do some research on key breakage. I tested fully inserted keys by fitting a torque wrench to the head of the key and turning until the key fractured or the head broke completely off.

IIRC, brass fractured at 35 lb/in of torque and surprisingly the aluminum keys didn’t fracture until 58 lb/in of torque. I think they were finally discontinued simply because people found their light weight unacceptable and there was a tendency to turn before they were fully inserted. Most of them break at a cut root and not at the shoulder.
BBE.

JD401

Given the cost of aluminum in “the old days”, I wonder… what was the cost to produce a key blank in aluminum vs. brass decades ago? And what about NOW?

ALSO, do the dies used to stamp out a key blanks need more/less pressure as per different metals?

Grayhair

Back when the dollar-value of an order didn’t require exponential notation to get free freight, transportation costs were starting to skyrocket and aluminum keys may have saved Yale a little money. I remember them only with lower cost products (ie: 1747 rim cylinder, 5210 and later 5280 residential knoblocks, etc). They still had some reasonable residential sales then and while the weight difference between a brass and an aluminum key was miniscule, multiply it by 1,000 for a 500 lock order.

Reducing the weight of the keys as a percentage of the total weight, may have been pennies on a 500 lock order, how many tens or hundreds of thousands of those devices did Yale “pay the freight” on each year? Although I don’t remember cutting any, I’d bet aluminum blanks were available; big weight difference there. That was also about the time MBAs (Master of Business Administration) started appearing and “bean counting” took on a whole new meaning.

YALE7750

Grayhair wrote
Back when the dollar-value of an order didn’t require exponential notation to get free freight, transportation costs were starting to skyrocket and aluminum keys may have saved Yale a little money. I remember them only with lower cost products (ie: 1747 rim cylinder, 5210 and later 5280 residential knoblocks, etc). They still had some reasonable residential sales then and while the weight difference between a brass and an aluminum key was miniscule, multiply it by 1,000 for a 500 lock order.

Reducing the weight of the keys as a percentage of the total weight, may have been pennies on a 500 lock order, how many tens or hundreds of thousands of those devices did Yale “pay the freight” on each year? Although I don’t remember cutting any, I’d bet aluminum blanks were available; big weight difference there. That was also about the time MBAs (Master of Business Administration) started appearing and “bean counting” took on a whole new meaning.

That makes sense–everything these days seems to be getting lighter and cheaper in construction as fuel and shipping costs keep going up. Those Yale residential locks and rim cylinders also had pot-metal cylinders and cores, which I guess are some type of zinc alloy, cheaper and lighter than brass.

In addition to Yale, I remember Weiser was making aluminum keys in the 70’s, (about the time they switched to plastic cylinder shells in the residential knobs).

[unknown]