silca duo mortice cutter

[onestop]

i have a silca duo and over the past 2 years its just chewing through the mortice cutter blade any time i try to cut a chunky steel key like an arrone ts7421 the blade's start to blunt, when this happens i can cut the brass keys with a bit more noise coming from the blade and i can cut the union 3 lever steel aswell.

 

the latest blade i installed was on 17th oct 13 and it has gone blunt after 30-40 brass/union 3l keys and 2 of the above mentioned steel arrone key. at £28 a pop its not really feasible for me to continue like this.

 

i have looked at the nwks catalogue and noticed the gadaid tm8000 has 5% titanium blades. i have also notice the only other blade i could try is the one for the silca lancer the only snag would be the 1.25 mm thickness of the duo blade and the 1.3mm thickness of the lancer blade where by each lever cut would be 0.05mm thinner therefore i was thinking if i could then change the tracer plate for a 1.3mm one for a lancer but as i haven't got access to a lancer i cant check if it is possible.

 

my main question is:

is there a better or alternative mortice cutter available

[onestop]

i have spoke to north west keys this afternoon and was advised many customers have issues with the E*S key they just are a pain to cut. if there is anyone out there with RST TM800 (gladaid) machine can you feed back how the mortice bade copes with thicker key blanks and how the machine is overall.

[grahamparker]

I have a blade Vectis using the 750 cutter and a lancer and have no problems with e*s keys.

[autolock]

I have a blade Vectis using the 750 cutter and a lancer and have no problems with e*s keys.

Blade vectis. That's the bees knees =D>

[onestop]

thanks Graham for the feedback,

 

im going to buy myself a lancer tracer and bodge it (drill hole) along with a lancer blade for my duo machine. its going on my to do list for 2014.