Donmetal vault doors

[wylk]

Dicey, no, the actual ad is not in my collection. I tend to gather images but not much paper.

As for keeping designs secret, it depends on the circumstances and attitudes. I'm sure Mosler was proud of their Donmetal doors and widely let people know of the design. This communicates confidence, and lets the bad guys know that if a door says "Mosler" it will be an even more difficult job to break in. On the other hand there are details that should be guarded such as exactly where to drill and what you may encounter in the process. See for example "security by obscurity" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_by_obscurity).

If Bode Panzer published a brochure it can hardly be considered a secret. Drawings might be different.

[Adrian Weber]

I know the principle and don't have to look it up on wikipedia but thanks anyway.

Well their brochures were not handed out to anyone. Probably only to banks and some information only if the order was already being placed. But yes the brochure is not the problem but drawings, technical information and cut away views are.

I am just trying to be careful :)

[Adrian Weber]

Hey wylk,

No problem mate I will just scan it and then put it up leaving the interpretation for you mate ;)
I think those rugs were just being common that time mate! Probably lots of rooms where the safe was looked like the same. Not sure on that though.

[wylk]

My impression/experience is that the US patent office (http://patft.uspto.gov/) is excellent for things back to about 1976 but nearly useless for anything earlier, requiring an exact patent number, or issue date and/or Current Classification. http://freepatentsonline.com is fairly good for things back to approximately the 1920s. Google Patents is OK for things earlier but relies on optical character recognition (OCR) and can be extremely awful, sometimes recognizing the form printing company as the inventor etc.

I remember discovering that freepatentsonline had OCR'd "X-Ray" but the software thought "X" was the Greek letter Chi, and had thus filed everything as "Chi-Ray" rather than "X-Ray". I pointed this out to them and they replied that this was the way they had received the data from the patent office. They still haven't corrected it.

So each has its uses and limits.

[wylk]

Nice pictures, and I note that there is no obvious copper layer. I used to think that was what made it "Donsteel". But after reading the monograph (thanks, Doug) and the patents, it's apparent that Donsteel was a steel alloy and manufacturing method. I believe the copper layer probably assures it's Donsteel, but being Donsteel does not require a copper layer.

[wylk]

I first learned about Donmetal from an official Mosler history published around 1999, 70 years after they discontinued it. Does anybody know of period advertisements or other publications? I assume Mosler didn't keep this a big secret but I haven't run across any examples.

[wylk]

Here's a color picture of a rectangular Donsteel door. I don't remember where I found the image and Google Images failed me. It may have come from http://reel-scout.com.

[wylk]

Here is a Mosler advertisement from Bankers Magazine, 1928 (volume 117 page 382), touting the installation of a Donsteel door in the new National City Bank at 52 Wall Street in New York City. Unfortunately the building was demolished in the 1980s to make room for the newer building at 60 Wall Street so it should be safe to assume the vault is gone. This is a scan from microfilm, hence the poor quality of the images.

[wylk]

I'm beginning to think the copper layer is not in fact a copper layer. It might just be a copper band for cosmetic effect, a sort of unregistered trademark to help impress people and confuse the bad guys. One way to know for sure would be to cut such a door in half but that's not likely to become possible (or easy). If it's a band that was bent around the door (then machined to dimension) it might be riveted to the steel at the bottom, a hard place to get to but not impossible. If a magnet sticks to the copper that would suggest it's thin with steel underneath. Does anybody have access to a coppery Donsteel door?

[wylk]

Another Donsteel door, more noteworthy here because of the unusual re-use of the bank building.



Houston, TX: 202 Main Street, former Houston National Bank (1928, http://www.emporis.com/building/isla...houston-tx-usa) now an Islamic Center (http://www.islamicdawahcenter.org/html/history.html, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/06/re...n&oref=slogin&, http://ifyokoye.com/2009/08/17/visit...ajuwons-masjid). The original entrance appears to have been 202 Main Street (corner of Main and Franklin) but the Islamic Center’s entrance is 201 Travis Street which was the bank’s back entrance off the parking lot. Sadly, the round Mosler Donmetal door has been painted white; another door is said to be the entrance to the women’s restroom.