My nephew in the Marines, now in Japan, has entrusted me to store his gun collection safely. To accomplish this we bought a nice fire-rated safe of suitable proportions. It weighs about 800 lbs. It has an electronic combination lock, a feature I distrusted right away, but the safe was half-priced. Several times, the lock refused to function. Scarce info is given with it up front, even scarcer available online. I've always gotten it open, but hate to envision cutting into the damned safe with my oxy-acetylene torch, should it come to that. Thus, the newest imponderable: Design and make a mechanical combination lock, install it usably for this safe, add "double reticence" to the potential safe-cracker: two different types of locks facing him. This has proven to be a daunting imponderable. Back in Phoenix while building our home, I incorporated a reinforced-concrete walk-in vault for safe-keeping. I designed and built the door and it's combination lock mechanism, taking weeks of intense study of detail. Given that success, why should I experience any foibles now? But, I did. At any rate, here's a few pics of the lock mechanism, now residing within the safe, guarding my nephew's precious investments. How could I ever explain to him that I allowed a breech of security to happen? Above shows almost the entire interior of the safe's door. The gray box to the left of my hand-made contrivance is the electronic lock. It is labeled "High Security Electronic Lock"! A joke in my book. The device is a poorly-constructed, weak, and gravely piss-poor engineering design. I have more faith in my own abilities to provide desired result than in commercially available highly touted "junk". Frank
Wow! Absolutely amazing, Frank. Again, I'm vailing my high top lower than my rips. No wonder we haven't seen an awful lot of you lately.
I decided to tear it apart this evening to show it's "guts". Here's what it looks like on the front: Here's the little "gizzies" (that's short for gizmos) I designed and made, the mechanical "guts". Those tiny washers are 10-thousandths of an inch thick. The dials are 1-3/4 inches in diameter. They are rotated by the graduated dial on the front. Trick is to line up all three slots in them so that the little brass "feeler" can engage the small slotted brass disc, which then draws the bolt upwards out of the locked position. The electronic lock which came with the safe still operates, lights up and beeps when #s are entered, but it's own bolt has been removed. It is doing stuff like this that seems to "keep me going". I know as the aches and pains worsen, the recliner awaits, but I dread that confinement. Frank
Looks very solid from the outside, too. Should be safe enough to store the crown jewels in it. I like the name "Winchester". Very suitable. So is it a safe specially made for weapons then or a normal one because you said "of suitable proportions" i.e. large enough for fire arms but not specially made?
@Thomas Stearn It's made for firearms or valuables, and as much as any other factor, it's usefulness extends to safety from fire. It has an U.L. label for fire protectiveness rating.