Compact ambidextrous locking mechanism

Abstract

Locking mechanism having a casing including a pair of spaced support plates of similar or identical size and shape. The support plates have identical, spaced, congruent, T-shaped tongues along their front edges. When the locking mechanism is installed in a door, the tongues extend beyond the front edge to engage a C-shaped strike in the door jamb. A pair of flat-bodied, blade-like bolt members, having shank and latch portions at opposite ends, and pivoted therebetween, are located side by side in coplanar relation in a space between the support plates. The latch portions project outwardly beyond the front edge of the door, between the T-shaped tongues. A flat, eccentric, plate-like cam member is rotatably supported between the shank portions of the bolt members. The cam and bolt members are constrained to a mutually coplanar relation by a sliding contact with the inner surfaces of the support plates on both sides. Manual operation of the cam member by a hand knob or lever moves the latch portions of the bolt between open and closed positions within recesses formed by the T-shaped tongues. In the closed position, they are expanded to engage sawteeth in the strike. In the open position, they are contracted to disengage the strike. When the door is closed, the stems of the T-shaped tongues are swung through an open passageway in one side of the strike, and the heads engage the undersides of the strike making accidental disengagement virtually impossible. Two embodiments are described, one with a rotary cam, and another with a reciprocal cam.