After receiving hundreds of entries and whittling them down to just five to be put forward for the public vote, our Dragons have finally found a winner for our Dragons’ Den competition. After months of anticipation, the winner has now been announced as, Tony Carter, owner of Earls Barton Locksmiths, who won with a staggering fifty per cent of the votes.
Tony’s winning idea was for a Mortice Lock Drill Deflector Plate that consists of a unique material and bumps to destabilise and deflect drill attacks. However, for times when drilling is essential Tony has also designed a Deflector Bypass Tool which will enable the user to bypass the plate as a last resort for picking the lock.
Tony came up with the idea for the Mortice Lock Drill Deflector Plate a year ago when he was looking at Pink’s Mortice Drill Template. It was then at The Locksmiths’ Exhibition 2012 that he confided in fellow locksmith, Martin Pink, to ask if he thought steel alone was enough to deflect drills. When Martin replied “no”, Tony asked; “What if the plate has lots of little bumps?” To this Martin replied, “This would work, but you would be hated by all locksmiths.”
Knowing he was on to a winner, Tony jumped at the chance to make his idea a reality by entering the TradeLocks Dragons’ Den competition. Though up against tough competition, Tony’s idea was voted the clear favourite amongst our judges and customers.
UAP TradeLocks Managing Director and judge, David Jennings said: “We received some interesting entries, however there could only be one winner and after putting the shortlist to the public vote, it was clear that the winning idea had to be Tony’s Mortice Lock Deflector Plate and Bypass Tool. The idea is so incredibly simple and obvious that I can’t believe it hasn’t been done before.
I am looking forward to working with Tony to put this tool into production. I am confident that it will be an incredibly useful and effective product and one that our customers will be very happy with.”
Tony, who is a traditional locksmith and known of YouTube fame as ‘The Singing Locksmith’ has a precision engineering background and a passion for problem solving. For the past three years he has been running his workshop in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire and building up his business and reputation to become a well-respected member of the locksmith community. Tony’s main passion is repairing and making antique locks and keys using traditional locksmithing methods while in the process taking them apart to see how they work.
For winning the TradeLocks Dragons’ Den competition, Tony will see his design developed and produced and added to our Signature Range, here it will join other products designed and developed by some of the most respected figures in the locksmith world. Tony will also receive £1,000 worth of tools of his choice from TradeLocks.
Tony Carter said: “I was elated to hear that I was the winner of the TradeLocks Dragons’ Den competition. I have so many ideas and I am looking forward to seeing this one developed, put into production and sold across the world. The £1,000 worth of tools is an added bonus and I will be using this to obtain the entire Chris Belcher range as well as UAP+ Zero Lift Cylinders.”
For more information on the TradeLocks Signature Range visit www.TradeLocks.co.uk or call +44 (0) 161 796 7268.
