A fascinating video of a masterpiece lock and others.

[Phatphish]

I was watching "What the victorians did for us" the other day when a piece about locks came on.
I have isolated the video and uploaded it here for all who are interested.

What.The.Victorians.Did.For.Us.Locks.avi

It starts at Willenhall near Birmingham UK,where Adam Hart-Davis gets to make Richard Hodsons warded bar padlock, this is followed by a look at the inside of a lever lock.

The next part of the video is an absolute gem. It shows and describes Charles Aubins "Trophy" lock, also sometimes called the "Wedding Cake Lock".

The Aubin "Trophy"

This famous trophy was conceived in 1849 for display at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Aubin used more than 3,000 parts in the compilation of his chosen locks and their connecting mechanisms. Very likely he would have employed apprentices to help him in its assembly.

"The Crystal Palace and its Contents" (published by W. M. Clark, London, 1852) says: "A contrivance by Aubin, of Wolverhampton, contained the movements of the most celebrated locks (44 specimens) which, with their connected mechanism, contained upwards of 3,000 parts, all put in motion by the arm of a lever communicating by hidden works". This was what became known as the Aubin "trophy".
This masterpiece includes all types of locks available at the time, including a pierce lock, which, if someone tried to pick it, would fire a small harpoon at the picker.
All the locks could be operated by a single Bramah lock at the top of the "Cake".


There is also a piece about Alfred Charles Hobbs, famous for being the first person to beat the "Bramah challenge lock".
Then the British Science Museum have a go at opening it and trying to find out how he did it.
This was the first time the lock has been opened in 150 years.

Finally there is a piece about Yale locks and their manufacture.

I am sure there will be some of you that will find this incredibly interesting, as I did.

Enjoy.

[MacGyver101]

Thanks very much for that! I missed the rebroadcast, and wanted to see that piece.

[barbarian]

Very nice video.

Thanks very much for posting that..

[tuscarora]

That was good watching cheers for uploading it The Bramah challenge lock certainly looked like a serious piece of kit.

[greyman]

Thanks for posting the link to this programme.

Sorry to be obtuse - but my windows media player (v9.00.00.4503) doesn't seem to have the right codec to play the video. Only the sound works Can someone please help?

[femurat]

Thanks for posting the link to this programme.

Sorry to be obtuse - but my windows media player (v9.00.00.4503) doesn't seem to have the right codec to play the video. Only the sound works Can someone please help?

Hi greyman,
my favourite player is vnc. You can download it from videolan.org. Enjoy it

[greyman]

femurat - thanks for the suggestion. I am not having much luck with this. I even tried the video on a newish Laptop running windows Vista but still got no picture (only sound). It's impossible to tell what exact codec is needed to play this video.

I suspect, from the soundtrack, that the video is partly the same as the Jeremy Bramah video that is ditributed on his shop's publicity CD. I could be wrong though.

[mattc]

Not sure if this'll help, but I use DivX and (I think) Windows Media player uses the codecs so it works in that too. I also burned it to DVD with Nero to watch on a big screen, rather than sat in front of the PC.

[tuscarora]

ohai, the 4cc is DX50 - which apparently means standard DivX. Going to http://www.divx.com/, downloading and installing the codec should get you watching it.

I'm on a Mac and both Quicktime and VLC play it no problem.

If you're not getting video from VLC or after you've got the DivX codec installed (and restarted your comp) then I'd guess that yer computer needs some serious looking at.

[lunchb0x]

Thanks for that Phatphish, that was awesome, loved the wedding cake lock and the peice about the Bramah challenge lock.