Copper Yale Padlock

[cowboyup]

Hello everyone.
I hope you are all having a Happy Christmas season. If you get a chance, I'd love to know about this Yale padlock. It seems to be made of Copper and is stamped "Made in England" on the shackle.
Thank you so much and Happy New Year.
Rick Guenther

[jeffmoss26]

Never seen one quite like that, but the GH would be the keyway and the numbers would be a blind code most likely.
I have a couple similar locks but they are all brass and made in the US.

[oldlock]

It's made of Bronze, hence the colour.

[Adrian Weber]

I agree with oldlock and was about to say the same.

Bronze padlocks are highly weather resistant even more than brass. The brass may corrode in some way being exposed to salt water, bronze will not.

[Jason Hillier]

hi guys they will have them on lock ups which contain
gas canisters so if you had to drill angle grind it wont spark also alot use them on the rail way with a 434 key

[Doug MacQueen]

Or it could be red brass, also known as gunmetal bronze. Then you would both be right. Red brasses are low in zinc content, making them hard to distinguish from many bronzes. Doug

[Adrian Weber]

Hey Doug,

interesting, very interesting, never seen a red bronze padlock but it makes sense! Thanks :)

Jason is right, I totally forgot about the "anti spark" feature.

[Huw Eastwood]

here's a quick comparison- I'm working with these all the time so always got off-cuts to hand-

Left is gunmetal bronze (LG2)- true gunmetal is probably the palest of the bronze alloys and best described as having a pale pinkish tint- the skin of the raw bar has bands of grey (lead) clearly visible and this often shows up on finished parts.

Centre is phosphor bronze (PB1)- probably the darkest/reddest of the bronzes- best described as a very deep claret red/copper colour- this pic doesn't quite show it as it appears to the eye- the colour is often a burgundy red on old bar like this and freshly machined or filed bar has a beautiful deep red shine. This grade was common for padlocks for its toughness and corrosion resistance. Many pin tumbler locks have springs made of phosphor bronze.

Right is a disc of basic copper alloy (C14700)-

[Adrian Weber]

Interesting Max and thanks for sharing!

Could you send samples of these three when also shipping another item for me? That would be great and like this it would be easier to tell them from each other.

I know that a German lock manufacturer called "Burg Wächter" used and I believe still uses "Antinitstahl" for the steel pins in locks (I am not certain if they still use it). Some locks even had both driver and key pins with this material. The only thing I could find out about it so far is that it was used for guns in the past and is highly corrosion resistant.

Adrian

[Doug MacQueen]

I don't know what wine you are drinking Max (Cheers!), but I was under the impression that Claret was the English term for a Burgundy, or is it Bordeaux. Fresh (untarnished) phosphor bronze looks a bit more like a Blush, or a Rose as it used to be called here in the US, only a little more orange than red. As a matter if fact the 10 lever Mersey that I am currently cutting up has Phosphor Bronze springs. Fresh pure copper has a definite orange tint. Generally speaking the lower the copper content in both brasses and bronzes, the less red it is. High zinc brass is quite yellow and is typically seen in furniture locks. Here the zinc may be 35-40%. Once a heavy patina has occurred, it can be difficult to determine the alloy. And the type of patina that occurs is affected by the environment. It has been many years since I assembled the Yale locks spoken of here, and I did quite a few, but I doubt they where Phosphor Bronze. However my goal is to establish the exact composition used on locks, so if anyone has spectrum gun, I would be happy to proven wrong. Doug