Slide lock?

[Delta]

Hi,

Does anyone have an example or info of a sliding rim lock? It's a rim lock, but instead of turning the handle to withdraw the latch you slide it. In the example below the centre door knob rotates, which when connected to the slide knob opens the latch. What would have been used to connect the two parts originally? The chain works, but just a test...



Cheers

 

[Moo]

What a wonderful contraption. I want one, too!

 

[Penners]

What would have been used to connect the two parts originally?

Maybe a chain? It seems the perfect answer - it works when you need it, and when you want to prevent entry you just pop the chain off the knob.

Alternatively, you could arrange for the rotating scroll-arm to pass through a magnetic field. When sensed, this could send an electronic signal to a solenoid which would activate a motor-driven cam to slide back the handle.

Personally, I prefer the chain. :wink:

My parents' Georgian house in Leamington Spa had a big sliding rim lock like yours on the front door. The door also had a large central brass knob on the outside, but without the rotating lever on the inside. I wonder whether it had originally had the same arrangement as yours (which I've never seen before)?

 

[Penners]

Delta - I've been looking again at your arrangement. I wonder whether the rotating lever was actually never intended to slide back the rim lock.

It's the two identical ends to the lever that make me wonder. Why two, when pulling back the handle only needs one?

Maybe the lever actuated vertical sliding bars - one upwards and one downwards - that acted as top and bottom central bolts on the door.

This is pure speculation. As I said, I've never seen an arrangement like that before, and I have no expert knowledge whatsoever.

 

[Moo]

Maybe the lever actuated vertical sliding bars - one upwards and one downwards - that acted as top and bottom central bolts on the door..

I'm sure I've seen something like that in an old house somewhere. A most efficient mechanism.

 

[Delta]

Penners, I see the logic of the double ended central lever perhaps being for vertical sliding lock bars or similar, but if it was not for the slide lock how would you open the door from the outside? I belive it was sometimes true that early doors often did not have external opening handles, the servants were always there to open the door for you and your guests, but not so likely on farm houses and blacksmiths in rural Lincolnshire.

Saying all that I actually think I have the definative answer, courtesy of a visit to Peckover House (NT) today, I took a nosey look behind the the open door at the side for the gift shop... and bingo, they had a lovely example of a slide lock with the same level setup!

Their lever sat vertically (rather than horizontal in my photo). There was then chain from each eye towards the lock, which had a large hook on the knob, onto which the chains terminated. A Y shape of chain in effect, finished with this hook that sound round the knob. For info it, the chain was a heavy guage jack chain, about 1/2" links.


Moo, if you wamt one they come up on ebay quite a bit, but rarely well described. Look at the knob/handle with the brass slide guide, that is always the giveaway, rather than the more comon round brass collar is just nothing on a conventional twist handle.

 

[Penners]

A Y shape of chain in effect

Aha - well researched! The Y chain was presumably to ensure that the lock would slide whichever way the knob was rotated?

Peckover House used to belong to a distant relative of mine!