Bramah lock (cylinder with sliding plates)
Cerradura de Bramah (de cilindro con láminas deslizantes)
- Date
- 1784 · confidence high
- Place
- Piccadilly, London, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Joseph Bramah
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A cylinder-key lock with metal plates that move with a fine precision, so it cannot be picked. Its maker displayed it in his shop window with a prize for opening it.
It is said that nobody managed to open it until 1851, when Alfred Hobbs did so after about 51 hours of work; the patent dates to 1784.
What it led to
- high-precision security locks of the 19th century
- precision machine tooling, with Maudslay
- later cylinder locks such as Yale's