Most keys, it seems, are silver-colored, with a minority brass or brass-colored. Yet the silvery keys are plated brass. Why don’t the key-men just have them in the original brass, and leave off plating altogether?
I suppose it’s done mainly for aesthetic reasons. The plating is probably nickel or chrome, although it is possible to silver-plate brass. Either way, the keys will be far less likely to tarnish, but will still have the machinability of brass.
The plating will also improve the wear resistance and perhaps offer a slightly lower coefficient of friction (less likely to get stuck in the lock).
And magical.
Don’t forget magical.
hurm for looks?
I have never really thought about it and I deal with keys all the time. (being a lcoksmith and all) The keys I use all seem to be (most anyway) brass or Nickel plated brass.
I have run across a few cheapo aluminum keyblanks which I avoid. They tend to gum up the cutting wheel on the key machine.
Rarely I run across steel keys. Steel is not used much in day to day locks (of course there are exceptions) I can think of three reasons.
One: brass keyblanks are cheaper and stand up well to use.
Two: Most pins and wafers in locksets are made of brass. If you have a steel key it will wear out the pins faster than the key causing loads of ungood things.
Three: Most keymachines use a carbide cutting wheel which works great for fast accurate dupication on brass. But Steel will wear out those expensive little dutter wheels pretty quick.
ok enough rambling from me
You beat me to it!!!
By the way, the actual silver key I own, which my nick derives from, is NOT plated brass, but a nickel / silver alloy of some kind. It’s pretty darn cool looking too.