These are part of a recent project for Fountains Abbey - Six working Tudor period chest locks.

Three plain square locks and three larger pillow shaped locks.

All the locks to be forged from pure iron, each to be slightly different and each lock supplied with one key.

Each key must be capable of opening any of the locks.

 

Shoot that's an amazing commission! How on earth did you price a job like that?

Any pictures of the mechanism?

Great work! I have a lot of intrigue in lock smithing. I wish I still had my templates and tooling for making them. I'll make new ones one of these days. Is the mechanism a single latching spring or double with a cam? 

They're a tad late ordering these Wayne, it's already been looted.....!

Very nice work, do you know where they will be used? I'm wondering how many visitors will view these in the future and think they are original items!!!!!

Last time I was in Colonial Williamsburg they were working in some period large locks for doors quite interesting the work going on , certainly wet my whistle to learn more on the subject.  nice work here. 

Great!

Any chance of a few"under the hood" photos?

Thanks for the kind words,

I did not think to get shots of the back as I was busy wrapping them for shipping but I have a couple more on the go so I will get shots of them. They are going on chests in an educational area they are setting up, along with a curtain pole and a load of tenter hooks for hanging tapestries.

As far as pricing it was a bit of a guess and I probably under charged but the folks who commissioned them are regulars who have put a lot of work my way in the past so......

The mechanism is a simple throw bolt held by a P spring which is easier to set up than an S spring and a single ward to make it easier for matching all the keys.

The keys are hollow made from a piece of plate cut out and rolled to fit a pin the same size as the pin on the lock. The bow was formed by flattening the end of the shaft and fire welding closed then drawing out bringing round to form the bow and welding back on itself in the fire.

Here is another lock I made for a cupboard on another job, for this the lock and nails had to be tin coated which was a pain - more luck than any thing else.

that is really cool! good job

 

I'm happy that you would get commissions of this type. They are most interesting. And yes, please, like others I would like to see the insides of these. Maybe, this would at last get me into attempting lock forging.

Thanks for posting.