Vault Door Book?

[VaultDoors]

Does anyone know of a book dedicated to antique vault doors? Preferably a picture book with color close ups of boltwork, schematics, stats, and a location index? I searched the Web but could not find anything. Locations would be helpful so I could visit the sites when traveling. I have the book American Genius by Erroll and Erroll but that is focused on bank locks and time clocks.

[wylk]

I have been compiling a catalog of "interesting" vault locations. It's a Word document of almost 52 megabytes. Some vault locations no longer exist but are of historical value, some are suspected but not verified, some are still banks which means they probably don't like "vault tourists." I do include imagery when I can find it but I've visited very close to zero of them. Most are in the US. I update/correct it when I make new discoveries.

I don't have much in the way of closeups, stats, etc.

Your avatar is One King West, correct?

Because of the size I don't think I can email it (haven't tried since my provider switched to a new mail server, and your provider may not allow large attachments either) which means I have to get tricky. If you are interested I can temporarily put it on a web page for download.

[VaultDoors]

Yes, it is the One King West vault. I assume its rack and pinion are concealed behind a plate but I am curious to know how it actually functions.

I would also like to know what purpose the two holes in one of the bolts serves.

That would be great if you could share your catalog. I use DropBox to store online files. It is free and easy to use and has a 'public' folder for sharing files.

[Huw Eastwood]

Yes, it is the One King West vault. I assume its rack and pinion are concealed behind a plate but I am curious to know how it actually functions.

As far as I know there were 2 main patterns on these:
The plate or disc visible behind the bolts is static on both types. It has elongated slots (lankets ) machined into it parallel with each locking bolt and behind them- hence they remain hidden. Each bolt is then driven by a pin extending through the elongated slot to one of two mechanisms behind the static plate:

One is a circular plate with diagonal slots engaging the pins which rotates behind the back-plate to drive the bolts in and out.
The other is a similar rotating plate driving 'L' shaped cams which pivot to drive each of the bolts in and out. It's all concealed since the slots are behind the bolts and parallel with them, and the rotating drive plate and the cams are concealed behind the static back-plate that is visible inside the back of the door. Looks very basic and clean but it's all happening underneath.

There may be more designs though, I'm sure Doug will know far more as he's been lucky enough to work or tinker with a few of them!

[Doug MacQueen]

About 10 years ago I was considering doing a book on bank vaults. This was after I had begun to notice more and more of the older bank buildings were no longer banks, and the older ones were so much more interesting than the modern vaults. I spent a great deal of time searching and realized they can be found all over the country. County seats are good places to look but even small villages will turn up something. Round doors were fairly common in larger banks. As an example, 3 out the 4 larger banks in downtown Mansfield, Ohio have round doors. One of these, a very nice Diebold, was no longer in use, and I posted pics of it somewhere on the forum. With a little practice , it becomes easy to spot most older bank buildings. Short road trips will almost certainly result in finding some. With working banks, it is more difficult but with a little tack and being right up front about it, often the bank manager will not have problem letting you check out the door. And it doesn't have to be a big round door to impress. Many times I have found really nice smaller doors that made the trip worth it. Doug

[wylk]

The holes in the bolt are indeed interesting. I asked about a similar situation with a Mosler door in Kansas City (search here for Kansas City Public Library for that discussion). It was suggested this was most likely the electrical connection between the door and frame for an alarm circuit. If you open the door, the circuit is broken; other conditions inside the door might also open the circuit (e.g. an unlocked lock, high temperature) but details are hard to find!

As for the boltwork, US patent 811,696 is probably relevant:

[MacGyver101]

Because of the size I don't think I can email it (haven't tried since my provider switched to a new mail server, and your provider may not allow large attachments either) which means I have to get tricky. If you are interested I can temporarily put it on a web page for download.

That sounds like an amazing reference; I'd certainly be interested, and can help with the hosting, if that's of interest.

[wylk]

VaultDoors gave a pointer to a nice image of the door at One King West (Toronto) -- http://www.flickr.com/photos/6867846...23717/sizes/k/. This image is interesting for a few reasons --

1. Each bolt has a small screw near the end, purpose unknown:


2. It includes a nice view of the frame-mounted controls, almost unique to Remington Sherman (some Mosler Century doors did roughly the same thing). It shows the push-pins to operate the boltwork (unique to RS doors as far as I know), and the anchor point for the pressure bar.

[VaultDoors]

In the round vault door schematic above it shows slotted circles on the surface of each bolt. Could those be large screws that connect the bolts to the circular plate (with diagonal slots) as mentioned in MaxVaultage's post above?

[VaultDoors]

Here's a video of the One King West vault door in action.