Butters system
Clive Egginton
interested in knowing whether the system is still used (and for what)
and what happened to its inventor.
Cheers,
Clive
Peter
I think that it like the 'sidebar' principle but applied to lever
locks.
I have put some photos of a Chubb 'Castle' deadlock in:
www.angelfire.com/mech/peterwn (they are on a .doc file page).
This British made lock is presumably still in production (parts of
Chubb are owned by ASSA-Abloy and other parts are independent - all
very confusing) and would offer higher security than the normal Chubb
5 lever lock sold for home use, etc. It has 5 levers and the key can
operate from either side (there are 9 cuts on the key accordingly).
The curtain as it rotates lifts a finger to push the sidebar into the
lever gates to allow the bolt to move, this also being moved to and
fro by the curtain rather than bitting on the key. Shallow false
slots would make picking a pain. There is a 'restricted' variant with
a different profile to discourage duplication.
The lock can be masterkeyed by cutting a second gate slot in one or
more levers. Ordinary lever locks with 'H' shaped gates cannot be
masterkeyed in this manner.
The only other example I saw is in a building in London (in 1979) with
'Union' brand locks (now also part of ASSA-Abloy) marked 'Butters
System' which would obviously be in a masterkeyed suite. I was not
able to examine any keys but they would presumably have 3 or 4 levers
as well as wards to increase the available differs. There have been
so many rationalisations in the industry that I would doubt that
Butters System locks (apart from the Chubb example) are still made.
If there is a need for masterkeyed suites with more than minimal
security, then pin tumbler locks would presumably be used nowadays.
Jim Gaynor
arragement of the bolt works looks a lot like the "Chubb" locsetset
depicted. The main difference is the "chubb" appears to se a standard lever
lock arrangement where the Abloy motrtice lock uses a rim type cylynder
housed in a truncated cone bushing and fastenbed with two long screws trhugh
the door.
The neat thing abou the lock is the deadbolt is automatic. When the trigger
bolt is depressed the deadbolt fires home, The Deadbolt can be temporarily
disabled by pushing it into the lock case.
"Peter" <peterwn...@paradise.net.nz> wrote in message
news:3eda9b48...@news.paradise.net.nz...
Peter
wrote:
>I have an Abloy Deadbolt on the front of my house. The mortice lock case and
>arragement of the bolt works looks a lot like the "Chubb" locsetset
>depicted. The main difference is the "chubb" appears to se a standard lever
>lock arrangement where the Abloy motrtice lock uses a rim type cylynder
>housed in a truncated cone bushing and fastenbed with two long screws trhugh
>the door.
>The neat thing abou the lock is the deadbolt is automatic. When the trigger
>bolt is depressed the deadbolt fires home, The Deadbolt can be temporarily
>disabled by pushing it into the lock case.
Quite different. The upper bolt is merely a latch retracted by
knob/lever furniture. The lower bolt is thrown and retracted by key
only - you need the key to to lock it. I think the distance between
the 'hub' and keyhole is the normal distance for British hardware so
standard furniture can be used.
Richard Phillips
preferably are sliders, having a shallow slot in one edge. A crank is
operated by a high point on the bolt, instead of using a bolt stump. Turning
the key presses the high point on the bolt lath(tail) against one end of the
crank, but this end can only move to pass over the high point if its toe end
(a narrow probe) can enter the gate slots in all the sliders. As the key
turns, its bit also raises the sliders - the correct key raising the sliders
to the correct heights.
Being edge notched, more than one gate can be made in any slider, and extra
gates may be adjacent or separate. This allows considerable masterkeying
possibilities.
Frederick J Butter was sometime employed by Chubb & Sons, then was for many
years chief designer for Josiah Parkes & Sons (Union Locks). He invented
this system in the 1920's. (It pre-dates Chubb's end-gated detainer system,
used in the 'Castle' range, by some years.) It has been extensively used by
Parkes, with models having 3, 4, or 5 sliders, with, and usually without, a
barrel and curtain; wards are not usually used. It was certainly in
production until recently. Not having a current catalogue, I cannot confirm
there are still Butter's System models in production.
Chubb took over Parkes and other companies, then Yale (owned at the time by
Williams Holdings) took over the Chubb Group. With Chubb, Union, Yale,
Ingersol, Lips, and a few others, in common ownership (now ASSA-Abloy),
there has been rationalisation of production and models.
Butter's System offers a relatively robust lock with more differs than
low-priced conventional lever locks, and considerable capability for
masterkeying, so it has long been popular for many institutional uses.
Butter died in April 1963.
(The parts of the former Chubb Group which are not part of ASSA-Abloy are
the manned security and alarm divisions.)
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Clive Egginton
interested because my wife's 97 year old grandfather (Henry Shepherd)
worked with Mr Butter at Union Locks. He frequently talks about the time
and he had challenged me to find information about the locks and the man
on the internet.
Henry worked on sash window/cabinet locks so I'm still after information
on those.
Cheers,
Clive