A D-ring is an item of hardware, usually a metal ring shaped like the letter D. It may be used at the end of a leather or fabric strap, or may be secured to a surface with a metal or fabric strap. For light loading applications such as clothing and luggage, D-rings made of plastics such as nylon may be used, as they weigh less and are impervious to rusting.
A common application for a D-ring is at the end of a tow-rope or chain, to allow one to create a bow around an item or part of an item that is being towed by a vehicle. They are commonly used with a chain to tether a boat to a dock or tree when it is being moored.
A D-ring when found on an M16 or variant type rifle is used to increase the pressure on the extractor and reduce malfunctions. The device is actually a rubber grommet shaped like a “D” and fits over the extractor spring adding tension to it.
Behind Locked Doors is a 1948 black-and-white B-movie starring Lucille Bremer. The movie, directed by Budd Boetticher, runs a scant 62 minutes. The film also stars Richard Carlson and features Tor Johnson (uncredited) as ‘The Champ’. Like many films noir, the lighting is used creatively to hide some cheap sets and other signs of a low movie budget.
A private detective goes undercover in an asylum in search of a judge who is hiding out from the police. The detective was hired by a pretty reporter that’s sure that the judge is hiding out in the private sanitarium. The reporter and P.I. begin to fall in love as well as falling more and more into danger from abusive attendants and other guests of the asylum. Other inmates include an arsonist patient and ‘The Champ,’ a man who attacks anyone put into a room with him.
Reviews for the movie when released on DVD in 2002 were mixed. Keith Phipps, writing for the Onion AV Club, found that they don’t make B-movies like they used to. He wrote this of Behind Locked Doors: “A probable inspiration for Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor, Doors suffers in comparison; Fuller made transcendent B-movies, and this isn’t one. In just about every other respect, however, it’s everything it should be: fast-paced, stylishly shot, a little lurid, a little topical, and thoroughly entertaining.” When asked about the similarity of his film’s story to the earlier film, director Sam Fuller pointed out that both scripts were based on a newspaper incident in the 1940s (Fuller had been a newspaper reporter at the time.)
Death from a Top Hat (1938) is a locked-room mystery novel written by Clayton Rawson.
It is the first of four mysteries featuring The Great Merlini, a stage magician and Rawson’s favorite protagonist. It was voted the seventh greatest locked room mystery of all time.
“As the story opens, free-lance writer Ross Harte is writing a magazine article on the modern detective story, and most of this article-to-be is included in the first chapter.”Roseman, Mill et al. Detectionary. New York: Overlook Press, 1971. ISBN 0-87951-041-2
When a magician is found dead inside his locked and (thoroughly) sealed apartment, the police call in Merlini to help explain the impossible, “perhaps on the theory that it takes a magician to catch one.”
All the suspects, however, are accustomed to producing the impossible. They include a professional medium, an escape artist, a couple of magicians, a ventriloquist, and two people who claim to exhibit mental telepathy in their nightclub act.
The first murder victim is found spread-eagled inside a pentagram, surrounded by the trappings of black magic. The second victim, also spread-eagled, seems to have been in two places at once during the first murder. After a number of breakneck chases from one scene to the next, Merlini and his assistant are a couple of steps ahead of the police and provide a far-fetched but logical solution to the impossible crimes. In between, Merlini and other characters deliver great chunks of informative conversation mixed with paragraphs of information about entirely unrelated but fascinating topics, like yogic bilocation, making the keys of a typewriter move without touching them, and even posing a tricky problem in geometry. The action also stops for a while when Merlini quotes a well-known passage from John Dickson Carr’s The Three Coffins about the nature of locked-room mystery novels, and adds some flourishes of his own in relation to the problems at hand. The penultimate scene in which the murderer is revealed is enlivened by one of the suspects attempting (on stage) to catch a bullet in his teeth, and all is explained in the final chapter when everyone gathers at Merlini’s Magic Shop in the best whodunnit tradition.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The book was adapted for the film Miracles For Sale (1939) starring Robert Young. The film simplifies the complex plot and replaces the character of Merlini with the Great Morgan (Mike), played by Young.
Like a Virgin is the 7th episode of season one of the television sitcom Grounded for Life.
Claudia is looking forward to a trip to New Jersey to try to bond with Lily. However, things go from bad to worse when Claudia tells popular cheerleaders from Lily’s school that her daughter is still a virgin. Lily takes off, leaving Claudia stuck - with no daughter, no luggage, and no clothes.
County Lock is a lock on the River Kennet in Reading town centre in the English county of Berkshire. It was built between 1718 and 1723 under the supervision of the engineer John Hore of Newbury, and this stretch of the river is now administered by British Waterways and known as the Kennet Navigation.
County Lock is the shallowest of the locks on the Kennet, as boats only rise or fall about 30 cm (1 foot) in the lock. The main stream of the Kennet flows down the weir on the far side of the lock, whilst another arm of the Kennet disappears under the Bridge Street Roundabout.
Created by Eli Whitney’s ( creator of the cotton gin ) nephews, Eli Whitney and Philos Blake, a mortise lock (also mortice lock in British English) is one that requires a pocket - the mortise - to be cut into the door or piece of furniture into which the lock is to be fitted. In most parts of the world, mortise locks are generally found on older buildings constructed before the advent of bored cylindrical locks, but they have recently become more common in commercial and upmarket residential construction in the United States.
The parts included in the typical mortise lock installation are the lock body (the part installed inside the mortise cut-out in the door); the lock trim (which may be selected from any number of designs of doorknobs, levers, handle sets and pulls); a strike plate, or a box keep, which lines the hole in the frame into which the bolt fits; and the keyed mortise cylinder which operates the locking/unlocking function of the lock body. However, in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries, most mortise locks on dwellings do not use cylinders, but have lever tumbler mechanisms.
The installation of a mortise lock cannot generally be undertaken by the average homeowner since it is labor intensive and requires a working knowledge of basic woodworking tools and methods. Many installation specialists use a mortising jig which makes precise cutting of the pocket a simple operation, but the subsequent installation of the external trim can still prove problematic if the installer is inexperienced.
Although the installation of a mortise lock actually weakens the structure of the typical timber door, a mortise lock does offer more versatility than a bored cylindrical lock, both in external trim, and functionality. Whereas the latter mechanism lacks the architecture required for ornate and solid-cast knobs and levers, the mortise lock can accommodate a heavier return spring and a more solid internal mechanism, making their use possible. Furthermore, a mortise lock will typically accept a wide range of other manufacturers’ cylinders and accessories, allowing architectural conformity with lock hardware already on site.
Some of the most common manufacturers of mortise locks in the United States are Baldwin, Best, Corbin Russwin, Emtek, Falcon, Schlage, and Sargent. Also, many European manufacturers whose products had been restricted to “designer” installations have recently gained wider acceptance and use.
A lock puzzle is a type of mechanical puzzle. It consists of a lock with unusual or hidden mechanics. Such locks are sometimes called trick locks, because opening them is like performing a magic trick. A matching key may or may not be used in this trick.
Lock puzzles have a long history.
Chinese jewelry boxes often contain trick locks and hidden drawers. An example of such a box is an integral part of the plot of the movie Shanghai Knights. Clive Barker has written a number of horror stories (including The Hellbound Heart, which was made into the movie Hellraiser) centered around Lemarchand’s box which appears to be such a puzzle box but in fact opens the gates to Hell when manipulated.
Other lock puzzles stem from the necessity to invent secure locks in the Middle Ages.
Lock puzzles are closely related to puzzle boxes.
Cookham Lock is a lock and weir situated on the River Thames near Cookham, Berkshire. It is owned and managed by the Environment Agency. The lock is set in a lock cut which creates Formosa Island and it is surrounded by woods.
There is a road from Cookham to Formosa Island and the lock.
The river is picturesque and described as Wind in the Willows country. Kenneth Graham based much of his book on this part of the Thames.
Cookham was home to the artist Stanley Spencer’s whose works include Swan Upping at Cookham.
A cylinder lock is a lock in constructed with a cylinder that a locksmith can easily unscrew to facilitate rekeying
. The cylinder may contain any of a variety of locking mechanisms, including the pin tumbler lock, the wafer tumbler lock and the disc tumbler lock.
The first main advantage to a cylinder lock is that the cylinder may be changed without altering the boltwork. Removing the cylinder requires only loosening a set screw, then unscrewing the cylinder from the boltwork. The second is that it is usually possible to obtain, from a lock manufacturer, cylinders in different formats that can all be used with the same type of key. This allows the user to have keyed-alike, and master-keyed systems that incorporate a wide variety of different types of lock, such as nightlatches, deadbolts and roller door locks. Typically, padlocks can also be included, although these rarely have removable cylinders.
Standardised types of cylinder include key-in-knobset cylinders, rim (also known as nightlatch) cylinders, Ingersoll format cylinders, American, and Scandinavian round mortise cylinders, and Scandinavian oval cylinders. There are also standardised cross-sectional profiles for lock cylinders that may vary in length; for example to suit different door thicknesses. These profiles include the europrofile (or DIN standard), the British oval profile and the Swiss profile.
Cruciform pin-tumbler locks may also use interchangeable cylinders, as do a few sophisticated lever locks.
Individually Keyed System (KD)
With an individually keyed system, each cylinder can be opened by its individual key.
Keyed Alike (KA)
This system allows for a number of cylinders to be operated by the same key. It is ideally suited to residential applications such as front and back doors.
Master Keyed (MK)
A master-keyed system involves each lock having its own individual key which will not operate any other lock in the system, but where all locks can be operated by a single master-key.
Grand Master Keyed (GMK)
This is an extension of the master-keyed system where each lock has its own individual key and the locks are divided into 2 or more groups. Each lock group is operated by a master-key and the entire system is operated by one grand master-key.
Common Entrance Suite (CES)
This system is widely used in apartments, office blocks and hotels. Each apartment (for example) has its own individual key which will not open the doors to any other apartments, but will open common entrance doors and communal service areas.
Lock may refer to: