Errors in ITL 9700A Flat Width Settings

I am gradually setting up a shop within my company to do locksmith work and most of that is master keying new construction projects.  I have a new ITL 9700A and ran a key to test calibration early on.  The specified cut depths on an SC4 came out fine both at the bow and the tip as measured by calibers.  I ran a depth key and put pins into an OEM plug and everything was flat and felt nice.  So it seemed the machine was good to go.

This last few weeks, I was tasked with setting master keys for two projects each of about 100 cylinders of mixed types:  mostly KIL but some rim and mortise too.  The first was on Yale GB and was going well until I did the block of mortise.  The cylinders were in two slightly different lots as a pair had one cam and one part number while about 8 others had a different cam and so a different part number.  These final 8 were all dragging as you turned the keys.  Some more and some less, but all dragging.  I took it the millings were holding up the key rather than letting the key rest on the bottom of the keyway at the shell.  I redid those few with bottom pins 0.005 inch lower and all was fine. This project was shipped.

I was then given the next project of about the same size based on Yale GC keying and started with the KIL cylinders and they started dragging at times for some samples of the MK or CK from the start. I then started looking deeper and found I could shift the key in the ITL vise and widen the cuts to stop this.  Also, when I pulled out the plug and looked at the pins at the shear line, the deep pins were rising while the 0 pins were not because they did not have a steep to hit.  I looked about and found the spacing numbers for the Yale G series and the ITL numbers matched.  It is a very tough item to measure on a key, but best I could the centres of the cuts did match the factory specification. 

I continued to pin but knew I had not found the problem much less the solution.  Some worked fine but some were dragging to turn.  This was heavy pressure drag and yet did not leave me impression marks even when I went to the sunshine. [My shop has poor light for this. We are working on it as it is killing me checking the third driver in on each end of a Yale plug.]  This was enough drag, some clients would think this is not even the right key.

I then realized I had a copy of the Yale spec which I had used my Professional Locksmith Association of Alberta (PLAA) presentation in October. A quick look at this says the flat should be 0.054 but the ITL setting used its flat #4 which is 0.048. A small amount but looking at the keys which I had cut which were at the MACS limit told me I could move up the flats and not risk anything.  I then went into the manual and defined a new flat width for #9 as 0.056 and recut keys.  After that, all worked fine.

I redid the flat width by setting up flat #9 and using a correction factor to get it to apply to my Yale keys.  Doing this means it disappears every time the machine is reset. I have to reprogrammed the Yale setting to make this permanent. I am thinking of moving back to 0.054 at that point.  Also is flat #4 of 0.048 used for other keys system?  I will have to check the factory specifications for Sargent and Corbin and Schlage.

This tells me that the first batch were not riding up on the milling at all.  A few pins were riding up since they were hitting the steeps closest to the shoulder.  I hope dropping the pins by 0.005 will not be a problem if somebody widens the flats to the factory numbers.  I doubt it but 0.006 was the error by ITL in the flat.

If you know of other problems in the ITL manual, let me know. I have worked one for years and found them usually robust but doubt this is the only problem.