Fairburn Mobile Locksmith: Restricted Business Keys, Car Keys, Home Locks

The keyway is the shaped slot a key slides into, and it decides where a copy can be made. An open keyway takes blanks sold at any key counter, so anyone holding the key can have it duplicated. A restricted keyway is one a lock manufacturer sets aside for limited use: Schlage's own guide says orders for its keys, blanks and cylinders need a letter of authorization or another verification before they are filled. A patented keyway goes a step further, because the shape of the key section is protected by a patent and no other maker may produce the blank. Schlage states that its Everest 29 undercut design is patent-protected through 2029 and that copying the design is an offense under federal law.

High-security cylinders add a second locking element on top of the pins. In Schlage's Primus XP, for example, a milling on the side of the key lines up five finger pins at a sidebar, and UL 437 listed versions are built to resist drilling and picking. The two ideas work together but are different: the restricted keyway controls who can obtain a copy, and the sidebar controls how hard the cylinder is to defeat.

Who can order another key is written down before the first key is cut. In the dealer-controlled arrangement Schlage describes, the dealer who set up the system gives each customer an ID card and checks every duplicate order against the signature on that card, and the customer goes back to that dealer for keys. In the arrangement controlled by the business itself, a signature card is filed with the manufacturer, a signed sheet goes with every order, and the manufacturer's key control department checks the signature. Some systems also stamp the customer's ID number on each key, so a key that turns up where it should not can be traced to its source.

A "Do Not Duplicate" stamp is not the same thing. In the US there is no direct legal penalty for copying a key marked that way. Many counters decline, but the stamp is a request; on a restricted system it is the keyway that refuses the copy.

No level of control stops a person from lending a key and then reporting it lost, so the paperwork matters as much as the hardware: numbered keys, a log of who holds each one, keys collected on an employee's last day, and a rekey when one is not returned. 4Keys Locksmith installs restricted and high-security cylinders, builds master key systems on them, rekeys, and sets up the key log with you. Restricted cylinders and blanks come through that manufacturer's authorized channel, and the dispatcher says on the call whether the work fits one visit or follows an order. Choosing hardware is covered in the commercial lock change guide.

Fairburn's ZIP code is 30213, and some addresses in the neighboring part of Fayette County also carry a Fairburn mailing address; 4Keys Locksmith covers both. Start with the street address, or the company name and building number in an industrial park.

From I-85, exit 61 (GA 74) is Fairburn's interchange. GA 74 runs up to US 29 in town, where it is signed as Virlyn B Smith Road and Fairburn Industrial Boulevard; SR 92 (Campbellton Street) and GA 138 also meet US 29 here. Naming the nearest of those, plus a cross street, gets the technician to you. Up the interstate at exit 64 is Union City, served by the same dispatch.

Warehouses and industrial buildings, such as those along Oakley Industrial Boulevard, are part of the commercial work here. At a site with a guard house, tell the gate the technician is coming and give the dispatcher the dock or door number. At a trailer or truck yard, say which row the vehicle is in. At home, a gated subdivision needs the code or someone at the entrance.

Work before opening or after closing is booked like any other visit; for hours falling between 9 PM and 7 AM local time, and on Sundays and federal holidays, a surcharge is added, and the quote on the call already contains it.