Is the tambour going all the way back when it‘s open? I have an antique English roll top desk and the brass lock is only for securing the tambour and the middle drawer. The unlocking of the side drawers is triggered by the weight of the open tambour. The back edge of the tambour pushes on a lever/mechanism of some sort and releases the drawers. This illustration from Fine Woodworking gives a visual of a modern mechanism, but the idea is the same... From Fine Woodworking,Traditional Furniture Projects, Taunton Press.

Actually, zinc_man, there are many cars which come from the factory able to run ethanol ("E85"). Their mileage on ethanol isn't as good as it is with gasoline, but it's an option for them. As for your earlier comment ("Gas could go up to 5$ a gallon and people are stupid enough to pay for it.Boycot it for a few days and it will come down but no one wants to sacrifice and are to comfortable in there everyday lifes"), that simply is not an option for many people. Live a fair distance from work? Maybe that was a choice -- or maybe, courtesy of America's mania for corporate mergers and reduced "headcount," you now live quite a ways from your new job. Many good-sized metropolitan areas have pretty poor mass transit, too, so that's not much of an option unless you have a lot of free time. Vehicle choice is similar. You can opt to make an SUV or pickup or a high-performance car your daily single-occupant commuter. In that case, you pay the freight -- it was your choice. Or you sell it for what you can get and move on. But there are people who need the power of an SUV or pickup for towing, or work in rough terrain, etc. It's a shame that the cost of doing their business goes up because the price of fuel skyrockets, but it is a cost of their business just as everything else is, and unless they can find some magic way to do without it, they'll pay the price almost no matter what it is. More correctly, we'll pay the price, since we buy their goods and services. I think that, at a time when oil companies are announcing record profits, there's something fishy going on. But not buying gas on Tuesday when you'll just have to buy it on Wednesday isn't much of a protest, and some folks just don't have the choice.

Do you also recommend that gun owners not lock up their guns, and simply rely on teaching their children about gun safety? Well, my folks did, and it worked. Hunting guns, though, not pistols. They were put away, and the ammo was high, but we could have gotten to them as easily as kids who know where the key to the gun safe is and how to use it, and how to climb on a chair. MUCH better to take them to the range, teach them gun safety and change a shotgun from what Elmer Fudd fires at Daffy's face, which leaves him still blinking and setting himself to rights, and all better in the next scene, to a scary, heavy monster that kicks back. Never load a weapon unless you intend to shoot it. Never raise the muzzle unless you're ready to shoot it. Never point the muzzle at anything you aren't going to shoot. Never take a shot that you can't make (i.e., hit your intended target). Never fire into the air or past the target (explanation of consequences). Always point the muzzle to the ground, but never at anyone's foot, including your own. There is no glamour to guns if they're not secret and forbidden. In reality, they're heavy, smelly, dirty, kick, pinch and are a lot of work to clean and oil. Much more fun firing nerf disks! Regarding the oven and finding out how the lock works, you might do better calling a showroom where they have the oven installed on the floor. If there isn't one near you, try a distributor like Purcell-Murray. They have nice people working the phones at BSH (Gaggenau parent), but they may not know the answer off hand. Re the fire safety, you're right about turning it off. If the breaker is well labelled that would be a good thing to do. The problem is whether you'll be able to open the oven after, and if your kitchen will burn down meantime. Not so long ago, lasagnas overflowed in my hostess's oven. It was her only oven, so she decided to leave it go and keep cooking. The spillage did, eventually, catch flames. It was easy to put out with baking soda, and the oven kept on working. The party (a big one) was saved. Baking soda will also help clean up the char. A lever lock wouldn't have been a problem. I assume it's operable using a knife for a lever or something if it gets too hot. I'd worry that an electronic lock wouldn't release in that kind of situation, forcing the trip to the breaker box while the dinner died and the oven was ruined...

I know this is an old post but I want to put some information up here that may help others. I'm a builder and a big supporter of Andersen windows and doors. I had a customer with an 8' patio door that would not unlock. Similar to what you see here, we pulled the handle with some force and it opened. We lubricated everything and went on our happy way. Soon after, however, the deadbolt would not engage or lock. If the door was open I could lock and unlock the door to my mind's delight. Not happening with the door closed. To be clear, the throw bolts above and below appeared to be engaging fully. It was just the deadbolt we could not lock. We fiddled with moving the strikeplate and adjusting the hinges in and out to realign it but no go. The answer was the height adjustment on the Andersen hinges. Andersen states that it is very rare having to touch these but in this case it was the answer. (The hinges are adjusted up and down via an allen screw at the bottom of the hinge. You need an allen wrench to reach up there and adjust it). We first adjusted it up thinking that the door was too low and was stopping the locks from engaging. However, we ended up adjusting the door downwards and voila. Lockable once again. I note here and in my aging brain that if I have another door that won't open (the first problem I had with this door) I would first try to adjust the height on the hinges to see if I could get the door to release. I'm convinced that the locking door and the door lock were very related to the hinges being slightly out of whack. FYI