Your local hardware supermarket uses one of those new-fangled machines that's supposed to be idiot proof.  HA!!  We'll show them!  In my experience they are marginal at best, the keys I've had made using the automatic machine have required a bit of wiggling to work.

For just a few cents more I can go to my Local Locksmith and have a key cut by a craftsman.  He has the correct blanks.  He cuts with a machine that requires a little more skill, but which produces far superior copies.  Do you want to save a buck and chance not being able to unlock your forks?

I just saw the link you slip in there

I gotta find one of those kinds of places....mmmm....any one from the DE area willing to help?  

Check out http://www.motorcyclekeys.com/blanks4.html. Call to place your order and the key blanks should be in your hands pretty quick. I've ordered from them before, with no problems at all.

LOLOLOLOL .... Sluggo ...."suffering a bad case of C.R.S. right now"

I thought I was the only one that used that line      damit now I gota come up with a new one.    

sluggo wrote on 11/05/08 at 11:54:23:

'Twas I.   I searched my posts and found it:

Ilco does make the exact correct blank for the Suzuki Savage: X179 SUZ12  http://www.mrlock.com/eshop/locks/SUZ12.html

Speaking of CRS -- it was only THEN did I remember that the information is stamped on my motorcycle key that was in my pocket all along.  (When making a spare key, you use the spare key and place the original key on your keyboard.)

I have a special place for the spare keys:  On the keyring for the trailer locks in the glove box of my tow vehicle.

This way, I can still ride even if I stupidly forget to bring the regular bike keys with me.

Guess how I figured it out???



(Riding in Colorado is fun -- riding across Kansas and the eastern half of Colorado is not.  Thanks to the trailer, I was full of energy and enthusiasm when we made it to the mountains!)

The fork lock is tough, nothing sold in America works without changing the smaller slot on the back side of the key to a square bottom format like the original german blank had.

You can start with an Axxess #93 blank, get the overlong thing cut to match the existing key blank (indexing both off the stop shoulder up near the round end) with the overlong waste stock sticking out the end of the newly formed key like an unnecessary metal blob right at the end.

Cut/grind the blob off and take a fine detail file and form the end of the newly made key to match your original blank for rounded form and length.  

Then go pick a correct width/tooth form cutsaw blade and hand draw cut the small tapered bottom slot to a square format.  Draw cutting is putting a tooth or two at the tip of the new sharp relatively long coarse cutsaw blade into the slot (pick a coarse blade that will be as wide as the cut needs to be to match the old key's slot) then pull the blade to you by hand, ripping a single curl scratch cut into the tapered shoulder of the existing slot.  Repeat as many times as needed.  

Scritch-rip, scritch-rip, scritch-rip ....

Hand skill is needed to do this -- you can file it by hand but it would take like forever with a thin enough file.  You can dremel it, but control is tough using a square bottom rotating cutter and the wheels aren't the right width unless stacked (and they load up quick with the soft brass).  Hand draw cutting with the correct width and tooth form of cutsaw blade is much quicker and cleaner.

Repeat the hand draw cut motion as needed, it goes quicker than you would think as all you need to is create enough "square bottom" to the slot to allow a form plate/pin to freely go down the slot which then allows the shape of the key machine cut form to actuate the tumblers.  You only have to flat bottom away the high side of the tapered slot that is there already, not much in the way of additional depth is really needed after the correct width and square bottom form is achieved.


==================================


Now, as soon as somebody finds a correct blank for this fork lock we won't have to do all the fine fiddly work on the slot and tip, essentially reforming the whole durn thing because the Axxess #93 blank isn't really quite the right blank for the job.  


The Germans did this on purpose, you know -- revenge on their failed Japanese allies and on us Yanks for WWII !!   Scritch-rip, scritch-rip, scritch-rip ....  hee hee -- that'll fix them!