One King West, Toronto

[VaultDoors]

No automatic bolt motors on these doors. Doug

Do you know what is contained within the ball housing behind the time lock?

[VaultDoors]

I do have Lure of the Lock and will re-read Holmes' article.

Attached is another image of One King West, which shows pins on the door (left side of image); are these the ones that operate the boltwork? I'm also intrigued by the long rod which seems to go to the time lock, and the small indicator reading "Open".

Attachment 5450 Attachment 5451

These pics show a device mounted on a black angle iron inside the vault (hinge side) that appears to be used to engage the time lock rod:

[VaultDoors]

Here is what I know about the One King West time lock so far:

Maker: Yale & Towne Mfg. Co.
Series: Quad N
Movements: Four (one missing)
Size: M
Style: Coffin shape
Retrofit: 72-hour movements replaced with 120-hour movements between 1920-1970
Automatic Bolt Motor: none

[Doug MacQueen]

I hope to get over to Cleve Fed soon and may be able to do a little investigating on that door. Regarding the One King West door time lock setup, I don't get it. Timelocks either directly block the boltwork or are tied to the combs and block them from unlocking. I noticed that both the Fed and Toronto door both use the big N Quads, but I don't think the Fed door has that long snubber bar setup. And the snubber is directed opposite to where the combinations are located. Seems like a lot of trouble to the go around the inside of the jamb to the locks, unless it was electrically connected inside. Possibly once I look at the Fed door, I may be clearer on the Toronto door. Doug

[wylk]

I've also wondered about that long bar (and the small box at the edge that says "OPEN") which I don't recall seeing in any other images. Is it truly a snubber, in the sense that it is part of the mechanism that inhibits or allows the bolts to operate? Or is it a safety mechanism that allows a trapped occupant to disable the time lock, allowing an outsider (who knows the combination(s)) to open the door ahead of schedule?

[VaultDoors]

It's my understanding that modern usage is more often "Safe Deposit" than "Safety Deposit."

The "Safety Deposit Room" (as seen in the Realtor video) looks more like something the hotel installed for patrons rather than anything original. It might have originally been a "Coupon Room" or something else.

While the time lock currently has three movements, it probably originally had four (which was frequent on such large doors). I don't have any old images to support this but here is a drawing that suggests four:

Attachment 10101

I found an image of the One King West vault door with the 4 movement time lock:

[VaultDoors]

Several. I'll start with some historical images, though they are not of the door itself. I believe you posted one of these but it's not in your gallery.

Attachment 10345Attachment 10346

The above are clearly from the same photograph. Unfortunately the wide view is only 235x295 pixels while the closeup is 960x393. If only the wide view were available at the same resolution!

Attachment 10348Attachment 10349

The above are also about transporting the frame/hinge. Somewhere I read that while it was slowly traversing Adelaide Street, the streetcar shown in the second image was delayed and the streetcar operator was so mad he left the car and almost got in a fist-fight with the owner of the moving company. The move also supposedly damaged the pavement.

Attachment 10350Attachment 10351Attachment 10352

Similarly, the above are all the same picture. The first two again show the result of cropping. In the third, somebody took the second image, cropped it a bit, and photoshopped text and models over it; notice you can still see the deposit box lid poking out of the right-hand model.

I'll post a few more later today.

I found another historical pic of the installation:

[wylk]

Cool images. If you have a moment to explain, how did you find these? I'm open to improving my internet searching skills!

Are there any antique-locks members in Toronto? The door at One King West is publicly viewable (unless they have a wedding reception in progress or some other function) and we keep coming up with questions!

[VaultDoors]

Cool images. If you have a moment to explain, how did you find these? I'm open to improving my internet searching skills!

Are there any antique-locks members in Toronto? The door at One King West is publicly viewable (unless they have a wedding reception in progress or some other function) and we keep coming up with questions!

I primarily use Google Image search and Flickr with various spellings to find pics. For One King West I used "One King West Vault", "1KW Vault", "OKW Vault". I search former building names rather than just the original and current building names, "Dominion Bank Vault", "TD Bank Vault". I search for the city where the vault is located, "Toronto Vault".

Once I get a hit on Flickr I search the entire album not just the pic that matched my search criteria. Often times, only one pic will be labeled correctly and the others are not which excludes them from my search.

I also use Google Web search and Google Books for text searching. Once I get a hit on Google Books I download the .pdf (if available) then apply OCR (Optical Character Recognition via Adobe Acrobat) which makes searching much easier. This allows me to find pics from the article's text rather than picture's metadata.

I use Picasa and Bing for picture searching as well.

I capture images from YouTube or pics on my screen (via PrtScn key) as needed then paste the image into a picture app. I also right-click pictures and select "Save picture as..." to download them. If a picture doesn't have the "Save picture as..." option then I use "File/Save as..." and select the "Webpage, complete" file type, this downloads the entire webpage (a folder and a .html file) and from there you can access images in the folder.

There's a RealDownloader Plug-in on Firefox that allows you to download YouTube videos that can then be played and edited via RealPlayer.

I occasionally use the OCLC/WorldCat search engine (via the Phoenix Public Library) where you can search for and order books via their Inter Library Loan program if needed.

Hope this helps!

[VaultDoors]

Cool images. If you have a moment to explain, how did you find these? I'm open to improving my internet searching skills!

Are there any antique-locks members in Toronto? The door at One King West is publicly viewable (unless they have a wedding reception in progress or some other function) and we keep coming up with questions!

The last time I checked there were a couple members in Toronto who I may ask to conduct a photo expedition for a few elements I still am unable to see from the pics. I may be in Toronto for business this year and if so I will take pics and dimensions.

I am planning to build a scale model of the One King West door from Styrofoam and wood, no larger than 8" diameter. I believe I have all the materials required to really hurt myself :-)



Here is a 9' round vault door model and here's how it was built.