John Tann Isolator Boltwork

Chubby

John Tann made an isolator boltwork system at one stage but discontnued it, whereas Chubb, of course, continued with theirs.

Does anybody have any details of the Tann system?

Gary Stephenson

I have seen the Ratner one, but not the Tann one, do you have any info as to how it worked or what it was fitted to?

Chubby

I wonder if it was Ratner. Maybe my memory is failing me again.

Huw Eastwood

Gary Stephenson wrote
I have seen the Ratner one, but not the Tann one, do you have any info as to how it worked or what it was fitted to?

Gary what’s the Ratner version like?

[unknown]

safeman

Huw Eastwood wrote
Gary what’s the Ratner version like?

Don’t know of any Tann version of an isolator boltwork.

This is the Ratner Lee-Matic :-

and Patent illustration.

[unknown]

Huw Eastwood

Thanks safeman, Gary mentioned the Ratner Lee-Matic recently in a different post and I wondered what it referred to. Have seen a real mixture of Ratner’s but have never seen one of those.

Gary Stephenson

I have seen a couple of different ones now, but the first one was only about a year ago, I was called out to drill open a faulty Ratner strong room door that felt like it had a boltwork disconnect, it was a bit puzzling at first as old Ratner stuff I good heavy engineering, so don’t expect parts to break , figured it out though. Clever simple mechanism, even the bank staff didn’t know strongroom had this feature, hence the lockout.
This is the nightsafe;

Gary Stephenson

more pics

Redoubt

Thanks for those pictures Safeman and Gary. A very nice simple idea.

Huw Eastwood

Isn’t it amazing just how simple that is and yet it does the job so effectively. What’s also surprising is the patent drawing hints at pretty solid parts, U-shape casting and cast/machined block for the carrier and link etc, and yet Gary’s photos show just how easy it was achieved with a folded brass channel and very basic parts. Hats off to Ratner for that, as much as we all love Chubb’s legendary Isolators the cost and complexity of both Chubb’s designs was stratospheric in comparison.

Was that style unique to the Lee-Matics I wonder, of all the Ratners I’ve never seen one with those hinges or the distinctive shaped door pull and handle. Cheers again both for posting these.

Chubby

That safe is very similar to one I saw which, interestingly, was also left handed. The one live and one dead AED with the trace running the whole height of the door.

Someone had tried a hand hole attack on the side using oxy acetylene. They had removed a pieve of the skin about the size of a postcard but once they had hit the ABP monolith, all progress had stopped! Fortunately the bad guys hadn’t even attempted any violence to the door. So it was just a case of welding in a piece of plate and making good. In fact now that my memory is working again, I think we put a bit of IT100 in the space and welded in with low hydrogen rods. I was keen in those days. Nowadays it would be more likely to get car body filler!