Emergency Doors

[Alan Morgan]

long time no see, reading through old threads.

Whenever I attend site to help staff change numbers on a SRD I check if there is an emergency door and insist that they reset the numbers on that to match.
Invariably they have no clue what the numbers are and I open it from the back.

Ok, once in a blue moon they do find a working code, but not for the correct reasons.

[Adrian Weber]

Interesting!

Bode Panzer here in Germany had doors that were square but had round corners. I heard that these were particular difficult to built back in the days. They also described the technique how they did it I believe, I have to look that up later. S.J. Arnheim in Berlin had the best version if you ask me. The step was neither round nor squar, it was more like a claw and called "Klaunefalz" clawrebate?

I may also post a picture of that someday. It is described and pictured in an antique book by Julius Hoch.

[VaultDoors]

For emergency vault doors with jamb controls and a rotating lug ring (rather than locking bolts) - how does the hand wheel rotate the lug ring? I suspect there is a device that rotates the lug ring to overlap the interior lugs and then operated in reverse to align the lugs in the slots to open the door. Here are some examples of jamb-controlled emergency vault doors with encased combination viewers and rotating lug rings:

Equitable Life Assurance Society


Also, can anyone explain the bubbled-out crane hinge? It seems like a more elegant design could have been achieved...

On the Philly Fed's emergency door, the bottom/center lug has a slot so perhaps that’s where the 'pusher' engages to rotate the lug ring?

[wylk]

Initially I asked about patents for emergency doors. I did run across an example. Here are two images of a Remington & Sherman emergency door at the Colorado National Bank (now vacant) in Denver. This compares quite well to US patent 779,145 (filed in 1904), the description of which states it is "particularly adapted for use on emergency doors of vaults..."

[Timbo]

Nice pictures, thanks for sharing. It must have cost a fair amount to produce something like these. A fine piece of engineering work I must say.
Tim

[Doug MacQueen]

Timbo, where exactly is that bank located? Doug

[Timbo]

Hi Doug,
I will PM you on this as don't want to put it about on the internet for obvious reasons.
Tim

[Ant]

Well Timbo I for one can guess which bank it might be Lol.

But as you say Tim the conversation you report sounds all to familar. when they do have a problem it will cost a lot of money.
Regards
Ant

[Adrian Weber]

Interesting, I just found these pictures on Ebay but the guy is selling them way too expensive in my opinion.

[wylk]

Here's a nice image of an emergency door next to its main door (Mosler). This is the former First National Bank in Rochester, NY, 35 State Street. The building hosted an art show in 2010.