Not applicable.
This invention relates to a lock hasp particularly adapted for vehicle doors.
Tradesman vans are common and are often provided with auxiliary door locks commonly known as puck locks. The puck lock, which is the shape of a hockey puck, protects its inner locking components and is difficult for a thief to defeat. That difficulty then drives the thief to try to defeat the hasp, which can be the weakest link in the security system.
Conventional puck lock hasps have been made of steel plate that is secured to the outside surface of one or both doors by carriage bolts or other headless fasteners that extend through the plate and through the plane of the door panel. The plates may have cylindrical shielding sections welded or otherwise affixed to them that enclose a space in which the puck lock resides.
In another type of hasp disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,496,276 the hasp is made up of two stainless steel brackets that extend into the crack between the doors or between a single door and a door threshold. The brackets have bolt holes through them so that the bolts extend into the edge of the door or into the handle side door jamb. In the case of barn doors in the rear of a van, one bracket has bolts that extend into the edge of one door and the other bracket is secured by bolts that extend into the edge of the other door.
These brackets extend from the crack between the door and the jamb, or between the barn-type doors and beyond the plane of the side of the vehicle to a hasp portion with a tab to which the puck lock or padlock is attached. Because both brackets have to extend through the crack, each is of a relatively thin cross section. That thin cross section makes it easy for a thief with a hacksaw or a power cutter to hack through the hasp and gain entry into the vehicle.
The invention provides a locking bracket particularly adapted for vehicle doors that includes a first bracket adapted for attachment to a door or door jamb of the vehicle. The bracket has a locking tab that extends beyond an outer side of the vehicle. A base wall extends from the tab at a position at which it would abut the outer side of the vehicle or be in very close proximity thereto when the bracket is attached to the vehicle. This is such a tight fit that it prevents slipping a hacksaw blade in between the base wall and the side panel of the door so as to permit cutting through only the thin cross-section of the tab to defeat the lock.
Preferably the base wall extends outward from the tab and from the base wall extends a first side wall generally perpendicular to the base wall away from the base wall so as to create a space shrouding the projecting portion and outer end of the tab laterally. The bracket has bolt holes with an axis that extends generally parallel to the plane of the base wall so that the bracket can be attached to the door using either the fasteners of the door strike or the fasteners of the door latch or other fasteners that attach to the edge of the door inward of the outer surface of the door. The bracket extends outwardly from where it is attached to the door through the vertical crack of the door (the crack being either between two doors or a door and the handle side door jamb) that exists when the door is closed. Another similar bracket is attached to either the other door in the case of barn doors at the rear of a van or to the handle side jamb in the case of a passenger door, driver door, or sliding door.
The present invention improves upon the type of hasps with brackets that are bolted to the edge of the door wherein the fasteners that secure the strike or latch also secure the bracket to the vehicle and the brackets extend out through the crack at the edge of the door. The present invention modifies such brackets by adding a shield that includes a base wall and side walls that together define a shielded space in which the hasp portions of the brackets reside. The inner edge of the base extends from the bracket closely adjacent or abutting the outer surface of the vehicle so that a saw blade (typically 0.020-0.027 inches thick) cannot be slipped in between the base plate and the vehicle body to cut through only the thin cross-section of the bracket. Thus, preferably, the base wall is positioned along the length of the tab so it is spaced from the outside of the vehicle less than the width of a hack saw blade, i.e., less than 0.020-0.27 inches.
In a preferred form, the side shields extend from the base and may also extend from the bracket and shield the sides of the pocket in which the hasp portions reside to provide protection to the puck lock or padlock securing the hasp portions to each other.
The improvements provided by the invention also hamper a thief from hammering and prying the lock and tabs until the tabs would break. They provide shielding against this form of defeat, and also strengthen the bracket to withstand more abuse.
The bracket may have two side wall portions, with a space in between the two side wall portions wherein a key can be inserted into the side of a puck lock in the application where a puck lock is used in combination with the brackets.
Preferably, the brackets are made of stainless steel, which is particularly tough and difficult to cut or break with the type of tools thieves normally use to break into vehicles.
The foregoing and other objects and advantages of the invention will appear in the detailed description which follows. In the description, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which illustrate a preferred embodiment of the invention.
Bracket 10 has a dogleg-shaped portion 12 that is stamped from a piece of stainless steel plate. The dogleg-shaped portion 12 includes longitudinal portion 14, lateral portion 16, and hasp portion 18, which extends longitudinally and includes tab 19 that extends beyond the side of the vehicle 200 and beyond a laterally extending base plate 30. Tab 19 is generally T-shaped and has reinforcement ears 21 bent out laterally at its end, adjacent to where hole 24 with lateral axis 25 resides. Attachment portion 14 has bolt holes 20 each having an axis 23 that extends laterally, generally parallel to the plane of the base plate 30, so that the bracket 10 can be secured to the edge of the door 202 (
When the door or doors are shut the two hasp portions 18 and 118 come together in close side-by-side relationship to one another (
The base wall 30 may be a flat circular segment as illustrated in
The base plate and side plate or plates provide a space in which the projecting tab portions 19, 119 of the hasp portions 18, 118 reside to protect the tabs and the padlock or puck lock contained within the space against cutting, prying, hammering, and other tampering and abuse.
The invention provides an extreme impact in a sense of overall security. It provides a major increase in area that is required to be cut by a potential thief. The original 1¼″ tab remains, however there is an addition of nearly two times the material that must be cut through to get beyond that half of the shell. Overall the invention adds about four inches (two inches on each bracket) of material (stainless steel in the preferred embodiment) that needs to be cut before the lock will be rendered useless. Beyond offering superior protection against being cut off, the 1½″ outer shell provided by the sidewalls provides a better barrier against prying and impacts from a sledgehammer. By making the shield stainless steel, there is an inherent gain in strength and longevity versus other materials that could have been used. Another feature is the ease with which existing brackets for other makes and models of vehicles can be modified to incorporate the invention.
A preferred embodiment of the invention has been described in considerable detail. Many modifications and variations to the preferred embodiment described will be apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art. Therefore, the invention should not be limited to the embodiment described.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 62/201,685, filed Aug. 6, 2015, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes.
Number | Date | Country | |
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62201685 | Aug 2015 | US |