Salesman Sample Cannonball Safes and Other Salesman Sample Safes

[Tom Gordon]

So Cramer safe did do one with this type of locking?

[Doug MacQueen]

I totally forgot about Hibbard Rodman Ely (HRE) which ushered in the manganese steel cannonball era at the beginning of the 20th century. The bodies and doors were cast by the Taylor Iron and Steel Co. (TISCO) as they originally had the sole U.S. rights to make Hadfield's patent (UK) manganese steel. HRE also made vault doors using the same basic layout and used a small cannonball size door as an emergency door. Cramer was a small regional outfit and I'm including a couple pics and patent drawing. Now that I am trying to load the pics I see that the pictures are larger than the 732KB limit assuming my pictures are jpeg. Can someone explain how to reduce them?

[wylk]

Can someone explain how to reduce them?

This may depend on your OS and available tools. In my case (Windows XP Pro) if I double-click on a jpeg it first comes up in the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. In the lower-right is an icon "Closes this program and opens the image for editing" which opens the image in the Windows Paint utility (or of course you can start Paint and File/Open the image). Assuming Paint, click the Image pull-down menu and select Stretch/Skew; if you enter 50% for both horizontal and vertical it will be half size, and 1/4 the number of pixels. Note, if you shrink it you will lose pixels, so if you try to re-enlarge it the results will be much worse than if you start over with the original and just reduce it by a smaller amount.

I hope that helps!

Jim

[Doug MacQueen]

Thanks. I will try experimenting with some pictures that are less important to me. I regret being so ignorant about using the computer. Doug

[oldlock]

Wounderful pictures as always. Before editing your pictures copy them across into a new folder, that way your originals stay intact and full resolution.

[wylk]

Back on February 24, 2010, Doug MacQueen posted several nice images including two different Hibbard-Rodman-Ely vault doors. The second such image (blue carpet, polished brass door) is the Point Park University Library, University Center, 414 Wood Street, Pittsburgh. Some other images are on a writer's blog at http://sbeasley.blogspot.com/2012/03/pittsburgh.html in which it can be seen that the four time locks are Diebold, probably a substitution after the originals could no longer be serviced. So this should be fairly accessible for vaultophiles. Note also the construction method on the interior with the huge clamps which I assume hold the steel plates together.

[Parautoptic]

Nice pictures, was this building originally a bank or is this where the university used to keep its exam papers? :)

[Deep7]

Tom Gordon had some questions about locking bolts on cannonball safes and I wanted to give a little background.
I bought my first cannonball in Reno in 1976. It was made by "Herring-Hall-Marvin" and is the largest I have seen so far. Since then I have been able to buy 5 more. I only have 1 that has a single combination lock, all the rest have 2 combination locks, and all have time clocks.
About the "bolts": When both combination locks are unlocked and at least one of the time clocks runs all the way down to zero then the bolts (almost always 2 bolts located at 3 and 9 o'clock) can be withdrawn. In the center of the door is a small square drive sticking out of the door. A handle which is about 3 inches long, has a square of metal at one end that fits over the square drive; and has a protrusion so that your thumb and forefinger can hold the handle and turn it thereby spinning the drive.
Note that in the Locked position (either combination lock or the time clock remains locked) the square drive shaft is NOT engaged to the gears that turn the locking bolts. Yes, I meant to say Turn the locking bolts. These bolts do not shoot out like a normal safe. Even the large bank vault doors that have many locking bolts simply move straight out or straight in. A cannonball (like nearly every other aspect) works differently. When the cannonball is unlocked the square drive shaft is engaged and as you spin the shaft with the small handle the bolts are rotated and since they are rotating on a screw type drive they either retract back into the door or rotate out into the corresponding socket in the door frame.
The reason for this screw type gearing is that if (and that's a pretty big if) a burglar could manage to drill a hole into the side of the safe and into the door frame and try to "punch" the bolt back it would not work because the bolt is not simply pushed straight out it is screwed into place by its own mechanism.
Likewise the reason that the square drive-shaft is not engaged to the bolts in the locked position is that a burglar can not put any pressure on the bolts via the square shaft since in the locked position the shaft merely spins freely. (By the way this is not the system that an Ely-Norris uses) There's lots more, but maybe this helps.

[Doug MacQueen]

Deep 7, nice explanation of the boltwork. If you check out Brinton's 1904 patent #771,704 you will see where that screw bolt design came from. I believe Brinton was employed by TISCO Taylor Iron and Steel Co., the makers of the manganese castings for the safe you are describing. Can you post some pictures of your cannonball safes? I know there are many on here, including myself, who would like to see them. Doug