I went thru a wooden lock phase a few years ago. Someone gave me a nice book for christmas that showed how to make wooden locks, so I made them and became fascinated with it. Here are the phase one locks from the book.
Then I had the bug to make some patterns of my own. So I did a search of old antique/vintage locks and printed out the pictures ,then made them from the picture. Here are the results:
The locks are very simple operation here is a picture of the elephant working mechanism.
When the key in the center is turned clockwise, the cam pivots to the left this raises the wooden spring that is hooked to the notch in the bolt, sliding the blt back to release the loop of the lock.
Here are some other ones:
Stick I used all different woods, Ambrosia maple, western maple, walnut, palm wood, red cedar, mahogany, used up a lot of scraps.
Yes the Shackles… that was a real adventure. I tried a lot of different methods.
one wide board. that worked in most cases, had some break at the short way of the grain.
baltic birch plywood worked good.
laminated up my own plies in opposite directions worked good.
4 .Tried steam bending solid wood and wood laminate strips in a form, a lot of work and and marginal results.
I will see if I have some picture of some to post.
Herb
hot water soak works sometimes on dowels…
green wood bends and shapes better w/ conventional methods than if the wood is kiln dried…
kiln dried sure can get difficult…
after shaping the green wood, dry it…
