World's smallest working miniature vault door?

Huw Eastwood

here’s another I been working on for a while- still a lot to do on the front, but the back is done and this ones got working 2-way boltwork driven by the front handle- smallest I’ve made so far by a long shot.

Unlocked position with the bolts withdrawn

And locked position with the bolts out

This ones really small- the inside of the boltcase measures about 7/16 of an inch wide by one and 3/16 inch tall.

I’ve had to simplify things a lot to get down to this size, plus the real door had the added complication of frame controls, but after a lot of fine tuning i finally got a silky smooth action on the boltwork. Everyone been picking it up and playing with it for ages, and so far it seems to be getting smoother as the parts bed-in.

Still got detail to add to the front- pressure bars, stanchions, hinges etc but it’s turned out a nice contrast with the round doors, and in particular this little Fichet which is about the same scale.

wylk

Very nice, was there a particular door you modeled this after?

Huw Eastwood

thanks wylk. Sort of- it’s loosely based on Chase national in NYC. Think it’s a luxury block of flats now. It had the massive proportion and sharp angles I was looking for, plus very simple bolt work which I’d hoped I’d just about get away with in such a tiny size- albeit greatly simplified, as the central drive on the real doors was really for the pressure mech and the boltwork operated from the frame.

wylk

For future reference, here is the York door at 20 Pine Street in NYC, originally Chase National Bank:

I’m impressed they could make such a large door and still get it opened and closed with a standard crane hinge.

Huw Eastwood

yep that’s the one

Huw Eastwood

now added the hinges and changed the front handle for a smaller 6-spoke- pressure bars and stanchions are next

Huw Eastwood

A few major setbacks with the original boltwork has evolved it to the mark 2 version with rack and pinion drive

The tiny pinion gears from an old digital camera and was the only one small enough, where the teeth profile also matched the triangular needle files I used for cutting the racks. the gear turned out to be hardened, and very hard- parting it off the camera shaft and forming the boss on the back wasn’t too bad, but drilling the tiny central bore for the 10BA thread on the spindle was a nightmare- and a challenge in itself.
the tiny bottom slots in the rack teeth were cut down with the jewellers saw fitted with a 0.2mm blade.

Once the racks were cut it was then a hacksaw and files job to make each an ‘L’ shape to fit the main bolt bars, and then final soldering in place

These projects always carry a sting in the tail and after all this I got a feeling there’s still going to be another big one around the corner…