CodalSearch this book — or all of Codal…⌘K
nydus/How it WorksPublic
Page 395 of 446
Table of Contents

HOW IT WORKS.

is now impossible to pick the lock, as the detector can be released only by the right key shooting the bolt a little further in the locking direction, when a projection on the rear of the bolt lifts the catch and allows the tumbler to fall. The detector also shows that the lock has been tampered with, since even the right key cannot move the bolt until the overlocking has been performed.

Fig. 218.
Fig. 218. —A Chubb key raising all the tumblers to the correct height.

Each tumbler step of a large Chubb key can be given one of thirty different heights; the bolt step one of twenty. By merely transposing the order of the steps in a six-step key it is possible to get 720 different combinations. By diminishing or increasing the heights the possible combinations may be raised to the enormous total of 7,776,000!

Fig. 219.
Fig. 219. —Section of a Yale lock.

THE YALE LOCK,

which comes from America, works on a quite different system. Its

395