This manuscript offers a thorough account on the structure of locks and safes. Here you will find information on the history of ancient locks from Greece, Rome and Egypt. You will obtain immense knowledge on diverse types of locks such as; puzzle locks, dial lock, warded locks, tumbler locks, lever locks, bramah locks, American locks, stop lock and iron safes. Lock controversies as well as lock and key manufacturing methods are detailed here. Locksmiths and lock picking enthusiasts will find this very useful.
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Every improvement in the manufacture of iron, steel, and brass, that is, in the tool-making and machine-making processes, may be made to reflect its light on the lock manufacture.

Locks and door-fastenings have not, until modern times, been susceptible of any classified arrangement according to their principles of construction.

The curious and ingenious wooden lock of ancient Egypt is still in use in Egypt and Turkey.

In approaching the subject of modern locks, it becomes necessary to decide upon some method of treating the widely-scattered and diverse materials which are presented to our notice.

In the first place, there is the distinction between in-door and out-door locks. Complete distinction between these two locks is presented in this book.

The more ordinary locks are of an oblong quadrangular shape. In nearly all of them, either a bolt shoots out from the lock, to catch into some kind of staple or box, or a staple enters a hole in the edge of the lock, and is there acted upon by the bolt. A common room-door lock will illustrate the first of these kinds, a tea-caddy lock the second.

It is sufficient here to remark, that wards, springs, screws, alarms, wheel-work, escutcheons, all, however useful for particular purposes, are wanting in the degree of surety which we require in a lock. Hence the invention of tumblers, levers, or latches, which fall into the bolt and prevent it from being shot until they have been raised or released by the action of the key.

The lock-manufacture in America has undergone some changes, as has manufacture in England. The insufficiency of wards to the attainment of security has been for many years known; and the unfitness of even tumblers to attain this end, without auxiliary contrivances, has been fully recognized for a dozen years back.

It must be evident, even on a cursory glance at the past history of the lock-manufacture, that the prime motive for the introduction of novelties and improvements in construction is the desirability of producing a lock which no one can open without the proper key.

Here you will find complete process and system of manufacturing locks on a large scale.

The simple fixed-guard or warded lock is so utterly worthless for security, no matter what amount of good workmanship be bestowed upon it, that it demands but short notice.

Stop-Lock has been designed with a view to doing away with several weak points in the construction of lever locks.

Read on to find out more comprehensive information on locks and the various types.

Below are the topics covered in this detailed guide:
  • On Locks and Lock-literature
  • Ancient Locks: Grecian, Roman, Egyptian
  • Lock classification. The Puzzle-Lock and the Dial-Lock
  • Warded Locks, with their Varied Appendages
  • On Tumbler or Lever Locks
  • The Bramah Lock
  • American Locks
  • The Lock Controversy: previous to the date of the Great Exhibition.
  • The Lock Controversy: during and since the time of the Great Exhibition
  • Effects of the Great Exhibition of 1861 in improving English Locks
  • The Lock and Key Manufacture
  • English Patents for Locks: Aubin's Lock Trophy
  • Conclusion
  • Appendix
  • On an Improved Construction of Lock and Key: Fenby's Adytic Lock
  • Fenby's Stop-Lock
  • Note upon Iron Safes
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