What is a padlock?

There have been many padlocks since 500B.C. The history runs through the roman era to china, to England, and Scandinavia.

A padlock is a lock that is used for fastening two things together. It consists of a block of metal with a U shape bar attached to it. One end of the bar is released by turning a key in the hole.

Roman padlocks had a long, bent rod attached to the case and a shorter piece that could be inserted into the case.

Chinese padlocks were mainly made with bronze. These were key operated locks with splitting springs and were partially keyless letter combination locks.

Smokehouse locks were designed in England. They were formed out of wrought iron sheets and used a simple lever and ward mechanism. Then, In the Slavic areas, a screw key lock was used with a helical key threaded into a keyhole.

Around the mid-nineteenth century, Scandinavian-style locks were invented also called phloem locks invented by Christopher Polhelm. They had a cast iron body that was loaded with a stack of rotating disks. Each disk had a central cutout so that the key can pass through them and there was two notches cut out on the disk edge. When the lock is in locking position, the disks passed through cutouts on the shackle. The key would rotate each disk until the notches, which were placed along the edge of each tumbler in different places, lined up with the shackle, which allows the shackle to slide out of the body.

Alongside the Scandinavian one were the cast heart locks, so-called because of their shapes. The hearts had a lock body, sand cast from brass or bronze, and a more secure lever mechanism. These were very popular with railroads for operating in adverse circumstances.

So this was a short story about some of the padlocks. Through the times. McCoy Mart is a happy site for perusal into several kinds of padlocks.