I bought this ususual shaped lock at an antique store over 30 years ago and have always wondered whether the design has a known functional purpose or if perhaps it was just a "master piece" made by an apprentice locksmith as part of his "final exam" to become a master locksmith.
(Hmm, I wonder if that activity could be the origin of the word masterpiece? I leave that question to any entomologists here.)
Here 'tis:
formatting link
When closed, the OD is 3-1/4", ID is 1-1/4", and it's 13/16" thick.
The half with the tongue on it appears to be one solid piece, the one with the keyhole and locking parts inside it has a barely visible joint line halfway up its thickness, it's held together by several rivets.
There's no name or other markings on it.
The only application I can think of for this gadget is that it might have been locked into a groove cut in a shaft, to secure something in place.
Anyone know a serious practical use for this type of lock?
"Richard J Kinch" wrote: It's obviously a male chastity belt. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ I kind of doubt it, 'cause once the excitement dies down, the thing would fall off.
Hmm, interesting lock - maybe used to stop a round slidebar from being slid. By the way, entomology is the study of insects; the derivation of words is etymology.
-- Regards, Gary Wooding To reply, change 'feet' to 'foot' in y address)
I've seen similar locks that were stop collars for valves. Lock it in place and you can't screw the stop valve down, even if you remove the handwheel and use a wrench.
Almost - Except that apprentices become journeymen by making a "prentice piece". Journeymen are daily paid workers in other's workshops; from "journee", rather than itinerant travellers. Later on journeymen may become masters (and thus able to take apprentices) by presenting their "master piece" to the guild.
Germany was the real centre of this practice, even today. It was so prevalent that it even turned up in folklore and opera (Wagner's "Meistersingers of Nurnberg"). There are any number of terrifying fairy tales about master clockmakers making assorted humanoid dolls.
On Sat, 16 Oct 2004 00:51:51 -0400, Jeff Wisnia calmly ranted:
I see why you bought it. 'Tis a neat little gadget.
That, or placed over split shaft halves to keep them together. Perhaps a valve handle lock for a plumbing application?
It is obviously a Police model. (Note the donut shape. ;)
========================================================== CAUTION: Do not use remaining fingers as pushsticks! ==========================================================
If I hadda guess, I'd guess it was to lock a good-sized barrel-bolt, like on the castle door. Placed in a groove on the bolt, in just the right place, it would not only stop the bolt from sliding, but would make it damn near impossible to saw through because this lock would just rotate under the saw blade and never spit metal. It would also be "openable" from either side of the door/gate/??? by simply rotating it to the keyhole, although I'm not sure it would be easily lockable from the outside.
Undoubtedly a better thought out there somewhere though, eh?
Well, at least I just learned more specifics about climbing the guild ladder than I thought I knew. Thanks.
I sometimes think the world made a big mistake by abandoning that system of training; Did the change have had anything to do with the industrial revolution? I'm sure I'd get less angst over the oft times overwhelming smell of stupidity emanating from many of today's "professional" tradespeople if they'd taken more time going up through the ranks.
I realized that the word should have been etymology, just after I clicked "send". Must have been just another bug in my brain.
I posted the same inquiry on alt.locksmithing and received an interesting answer saying that in the early days of motorcars, when spoked wheels were mretty much standard, there were anti theft locks made which would lock right around the tire and rim, big enough to make a noticable racket if the car was driven, sort of an early "boot". Hmm, I guess they also had to lock the spare tire down, huh?
The respondant wondered how big bike tires were back then and whether my lock could have been used for that purpose. ('Cept a bike is easier to pick up and run away with than a Model T Ford.)
It might a safety lock, to prevent a piece of equipment being worked on from being started up. The engineer locks it and keeps the key. They are still used.
Back several decades ago my dad was in the coal business doing strip mining in central Iowa. He had a dragline, the machinery in which was enormous. (I'm actually going somewhere with this, so bear with me, please.) The engine was a two-cylinder diesel that had 16-inch pistons and (I believe) a 14-inch stroke. It idled at about 100 rpm and each time one of the cylinders fired it sounded like a 12-guage shotgun blast. The transmission allowed different gearing through an idler shaft that slid back and forth, with the gears on the idler engaging different sized gears on the input and output shafts to give the desired ratio. The output shaft then powered a series of clutches that engaged the various cable drums that operated the booms (a 320-foot main boom with an
80-foot "jib" boom on the end), the cables for the bucket and, of course, the dragline itself. All this machinery was open-framed and the cables were routed out the front of the engine house at just above head height for an average sized man, with the exception of the dragline, which was routed through a trough in the floor. The larger cables were about the size of your wrist and the drums stood about 4 feet in diameter.
The engine house/cab was about the size of an average two-car garage and was fairly open, i.e. no doors, so there was no really good way to secure the thing. Now Dad wasn't too worried about theft 'cause the thing was cerainly too big to steal, and all the parts of the open-framed machinery were so heavy that it took jacks and hoists just to remove them for maintenance. However, he was worried about someone getting in it and maybe actually getting it started. The problem with this would be that, whomever the pranksters or pranksters might be (read: high-school kids), could then get caught in a gear, clutch or cable and be ground to hamburger in short order. So he devised a few locks.
As I remember it, the main security was on the diesel, where he made a housing around the fuel shutoff valve and put a hardened padlock on it. I believe he devised a lock for the crankshaft too, but I'm not sure -- I was very young when I saw this machine. The other part was that idler shaft in the gearframe. When it was in neutral, the end of the shaft protruded a few inches out of one end of the frame. So, he welded a plate that had a hole in it (about 4 inches) for the shaft on that end. He then machined a square grove in the shaft about
1/2-inch deep to take a collar almost exactly like the one in your picture, except that it locked with another padlock. This locked the transmission in neutral.
These locks pretty well immobilized the machine and, according to him, he slept better at night.
- Scotty
*** No animals were harmed during the production of this reply ***
I think that the printing press had a lot to do with the demise of guilds. Before it, the spread of knowledge was very limited and the guilds could keep a tight reign on their particular knowledge base. The printing press resulted in an explosive dissemination of knowledge. IIRC, one of the major subjects in the press's early use was how-to books.
Via a post to another newsgroup, a kind soul at a lock museum in England tipped me off to a US Design Patent (No. D34320), circa 1901 and assigned to the Sargent Lock Company.
The patent drawing shows it to be similar, but not identical, to my lock in that the patent shows the hasp as thinner than the body, wheras my lock has a constant cross section all around. See:
formatting link
(I had to screw around a bit with browsers and plug ins to see the images though.)
Nope, not a clue. If I had to guess I'd say it was just an "attractive shape", hence he got a design patent, with no details about construction or operation.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.