Improvement in Time Locks for Safes.
Year: 1893

page_text: COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvement in Time Locks for Safes.
We, NAPOLEAN B. REES, ELI L. DALE and HENRY ZINK, citizens of the
United States of America, residing at Lincoln, in the County of Lincoln, and
State of Kansas, U.S.A., Gentlemen, do hereby declare the nature of our invention
for IMPROVEMENTS IN TIME LOCKS FOR SAFES and in what manner the same is
to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following
statement:
This invention relates to that class of locks which are connected with clockwork
so arranged as to prevent them from being unlocked except at a given time by the
clock, and its object is to produce a simple stop or bar to prevent withdrawing a
lock-bolt until a given time, and means for automatically releasing the lock-bolt
so that it may be operated at that time.
To this end our invention consists in the construction and combination of parts
forming a time lock hereinafter described and claimed, reference being had to the
accompanying drawings, in which:
Fig. I, is a view of a portion of the inside of a safe door partly broken away to
show our invention within.
Fig. II, represents a portion of a safe door in vertical section through its
thickness showing our invention.
5 represents the door of a safe, 6 the locking bolt, 7 a knob having a finger 8,
to engage the bolt 6 whereby the same may be slid to and fro to lock and unlock
the door.
9 is a guard which must have its notch 10 set to receive the rear end 11, of the
bolt 6 before the bolt can be operated. This guard is shown to represent a guard
of any combination lock and all the parts thus far described may be of any usual
or preferred arrangement as they are not our invention.
12 represents a latch pivoted to the door or to the lock plate 16, and it is
adapted to fall by gravity to engage a rear shoulder 13 of the bolt when it is in
its forward or locked position to hold it from being withdrawn or unlocked.
14 is a lifting rod fitted to slide vertically in studs 15 which project from the
lock plate, and it is connected with the latch 12 by means of a pivot stud 17
whereby its weight is added to the weight of the latch to ensure the falling of the
latter when the bolt is locked.
18 represents one or more studs upon the lifting rod and 19 is a lever carried by
the spindle 20 of a clock, and one of the studs 18 is in the circular path of this
lever so that the clock in its progress of usual movement will at a given time,
bring the lever 19 into engagement with a stud 18 and lift the rod 14 and latch 12
so that the bolt may be withdrawn or unlocked. There may be any number of
clocks, each provided with a lever 19 to engage one of the studs 18, thus guarding
against accident to any clock and ensuring the release of the lock bolt at the given
time even if one clock should fail. But to further enable those in the secret to
open the safe door if the clocks fail I provide an aperture 21 directly through the
safe and door under the lifting rod 14, to admit a rod from the outside, whereby
my safety latch 12 may be raised and then anyone knowing the combination may
unlock the door. This aperture 21 may be closed at the bottom by a screw
plug 23 so as to be undiscoverable unless the secret is known to one searching for
it. The relation between the clock hands 22 and the lever 19 may be changed so
as to set the lever to engage the lifting rod 14 and release the bolt at any desired
time, by arranging the time hand with a common friction thimble connection on its
spindle 20.
24 is a spring rod fixed at 25 to the inside of the door, with the opposite end 26

page_text: projecting into the path of a hand of the clock. This rod is curved to project into
the path of the arm 19 to be pushed thereby so that the end 26 will be projected
at the time when the lifting rod 14 is raised and will stop the clock before the
hand makes another circuit and before the arm 19 can escape from the stud 18,
thus preventing the safe being relocked even if not opened immediately on the
appointed hour.
Having thus particularly described and ascertained the nature of our said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, we declare that what we
claim as our invention is:
The combination in a time lock; of a locking bolt fitted to slide in a frame; a
latch to engage and stop the bolt; a clock upon the said frame: a rod fitted to lift
the said latch; a lever communicating between the clock and lifting rod; and a
spring rod fixed at one end to the frame and projecting at the other end into the
path of the clock hand, and projecting midway into the path of the said lever,
substantially as described.
Dated this 7th day of March 1893.
WHEATLEY & MACKENZIE,
40, Chancery Lane, London, Agents.