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Has anyone ever tried this technique.

Reading through a book on impressioning tips someone mentioned an idea to make the marks easier to see.

ANNEALING.... They suggested heating the brass key cherry red with a small hand torch. Supposedly this will soften the brass enough when it cools that marks will be much easier to see.

It takes some skill to know how to do correctly and it may make the key liable to break but might make it easier.

Never tried that myself but seems plausible,but brass keys are the best to use as they mark better. good magnifying capability and light source is a must but dedicated ones are expensive.
i was looking at a old postcard negative one day threw one of those hand held light boxs you drop the negative in,and realized this would be ideal for impressioning it works great with a slight modification and cost me next to nothing.

Never tried this technique as brass is soft enough. I usually use a blue or black sharpie pen on the key edge after i have prepared the blank.

Brass comes in a lot of compositions and tempers, annealing and hardening is a fairly 'precise' science. I would be prepared to use your key extractor ;P ... also keep in mind that brass heats up and transfers pretty well, watch your fingers.

you can order annealed blanks or blanks with a soft temper... they are bendy keys... but they work great for impressioning... and you cannot snap them

of course after you impression them youd wanna copy them onto a real blank before you give em to the customer

Never tried but seems like it would work. I usually mark the key with Sharpie black marker to ease seeing the marks. I use magnifying glass (I repair watches and have magnifying glass up X 30). The ink does a good job in identifying the marks.

Sorry to open a not too old thread, have any one tried aluminum keys for impressioning? I think these would have stronger and more clearer marks for impressioning.

Second question, can we get automotive keys made up of aluminum, I know they are more ductile than brass and can break easily, but I think, these could be good contender for impressioning?

Kent

None of the books on impressioning that I have recommend aluminium keys. I personally haven't tried them buy I do know that aluminium is a real pain in the butt to file and clogs your file. I don't know exactly what type alloy of aluminium keys are made from or what type of brass is used to make keys so I just used the averages available on http://www.matweb.com.

For the purpose of impressioning we want a measure of indentation resistance such as Rockwell. For both brass and aluminium the B scale (HRB) is used. From MatWeb I get the following HRB values:

Aluminium Alloy:
Hardness, Rockwell B 45.0 - 96.0 (Average value: 68.3)
Brass:
Hardness, Rockwell B 25.0 - 133 (Average value: 69.8)

So depending on exactly what sort of aluminium alloy or type of brass the hardness (indentation resistance) may be almost identical.

The rotational force applied to a key when impressioning is a shearing force so we want to know the shear strength. Matweb also gives us the shear strength.

Aluminum Alloy:
Shear Strength 0.138 - 420 MPa (Metric) 20.0 - 60900 psi (English) Average value: 101 MPa

Brass:
Shear Strength 205 - 415 MPa (Metric) 29700 - 60200 psi (English) Average value: 273 MPa

So, in general, brass has a much higher shear strength than aluminium and a brass key -- on the basis of the average -- is much less likely to snap. If we knew exactly what sort of brass and alumium were used in key blank manufacture we could get the exact mechanical properties but failing that we can only use averages and the averages seem to match real-world experience of the shear strength of aluminium versus brass key blanks, i.e. aluminium keys snap quite easily.

I suspect that for these reasons (file clogging, roughly same hardness as brass and lower shear strength) aluminium keys aren't recommended for impressioning.

The master impressioners, including the current world record holder (Jos Weyers see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLlIg2pxGEM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8aQSxXoLFk), recommend brass key blanks. The tip for making marks visible (without any other material such as soot, paint market, UV marker) is to to use a fine cut file (at least #4 Swiss cut) to produce a smooth and homogeneous surface before starting the impressioning and after each round. You want the key surface to be smooth and even throughout, before it goes back in the cylinder, so any marks are conspicuous. Another master impressioner, Oliver Diederichsen, makes the good point that some keys are only available in nickel-silver and for this reason you need to be able to impression with these also.

Thanks Piotr for your research to go deep into the basic characteristics of Aluminum and Brass for comparison for their suitability for impressioning. You have done a very good digging out on the characteristics of both the metals which cleared my doubts beyond a doubt.

Thanks once again

Kent

Slim Line is selling "aluminium" blanks but in fact they are in aluminium AND titane ... I've good results for impressioning difficult locks with them. I use to use them for impressioning rounded pin locks which give poor marks like for ex TESA locks. (they mark only on one side of the blank blade) The only problem is to not give to much torque on cause they break easily. They don't clog the files even the finest cut files as the N° 6 GROBET files
my two cents !!

Hmmn... I don't know if I'd want to anneal a blank for impressioning... Brass is dominantly Cu and as such it is very easy to anneal to a dead soft state (take it to cherry red and quench in water or even let it air quench.) However, trying to get a specific state of annealing where the blank still has some hardening left would be a lot more tricky as Violaetor mentioned there are various alloys used and each would behave a bit differently as to attaining a specific state. If you did take it to cherry and quench it, I would not put that into a lock to impression as the force used would likely shear off the bow of the key. Although, if you have a shake/orbital polisher, you could put the blank in there and run it for a bit to work harden the metal. You would have to check the hardness of the blank fairly often to make sure you didn't work harden it too much or not yet enough.

So, I guess my point is, it is not likely worth the effort.

Also, I'll second TheLockoutGuys on using a sharpie if it isn't leaving good visible marks or if you're just learning impressioning. As it most certainly does make the marks easier to see.

And from a noob using a sharpie is the only way I have done impresioning and I have only done 4 locks so far...

I do blacksmithing and I can tell you brass work hardens and can be softened by heating red and droped into water