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Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

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Oldfast

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OldddffAASSTT the Spin Master Extraordinaire and American Lock Slayer
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Post Fri Mar 15, 2019 6:59 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

:gosplit: ...the battle continues!

Or maybe he's just getting all the
lockporn from the opening ready
for a marvelous display :D
" Enjoy the journey AS MUCH as the destination."
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madsamurai

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Post Fri Mar 15, 2019 8:09 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

heh, nope... battle is delayed due to day-job schedule interference... will be continued on Monday. I got a couple hours in on it the next day after I posted, and I feel like I've got a decent low spot on each wheel to work from, now I'm going to go back and scan each wheel against the low spots I've got on the rest of the stack and hopefully find some actual gates... I'm fairly convinced I have one gate at this point, but will have to wait to see...
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madsamurai

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Post Mon Mar 18, 2019 6:55 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

ok, so this thing is kickin' my butt... going back over numbers I thought were good and getting nothing from them, finding other numbers that indicate nice and then don't indicate at all when I come back to them later... not really sure if I'm making progress or chasing my tail. Seems like I get different readings based on how my hand is holding the dial... gotta admit, it's getting a little frustrating now. I put another 5ish hours into it today, and I feel like I've actually moved backwards. Gonna give it another shot Thursday, but second-guessing my strategy now... really need to figure out a way to accurately measure the contact point, going by sound isn't really consistent. Any ideas?

One thing that might help is if I could clean/lube/polish under the dial and get rid of the extra friction and squeaking I'm getting from that, but I'm not sure on how to take it off... I took the center screw out but the dial stayed put, and I didn't want to try prying or anything without being sure...
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Oldfast

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OldddffAASSTT the Spin Master Extraordinaire and American Lock Slayer
OldddffAASSTT the Spin Master Extraordinaire and American Lock Slayer

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Post Wed Mar 20, 2019 9:14 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

Your experience sounds very familiar :) There's one like this just down the road that has given me some unbelievable wallopins, lol. Of course, it's not a fail until I throw in the towel. Even if it turns out that this is just one of those safes that's beyond me... the experience has insanely improved my stamina, both mentally and physically. Also humbles me, which is not always pleasant, but is always good.

Absolute props to you for putting in 5 hrs! Unless someone has actually done it, they just don't realize what a 5-8 hour session really takes. It can be quite torturous. Keep at it Chad! I look forward to hearing more about tomorrows visit (even if it's more of the same). However, dunno why, but I just have a good feeling you're gonna get it! Or maybe you'll make some good headway, and the next visit will be the one.

On the dial: Yeah, definitely can't hurt to see if you're able to get it runnin' smoother. Every little bit helps. Unless there's something I dunno, that dial should pull straight off. Though I can understand your reluctance. Maybe slowly but progressively get more aggressive with it. Naturally, be sure and note the orientation of the dial before removing it so you can replace it the same way.
" Enjoy the journey AS MUCH as the destination."
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madsamurai

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Post Wed Mar 20, 2019 10:16 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

Oldfast wrote:Your experience sounds very familiar :) There's one like this just down the road that has given me some unbelievable wallopins, lol. Of course, it's not a fail until I throw in the towel. Even if it turns out that this is just one of those safes that's beyond me... the experience has insanely improved my stamina, both mentally and physically. Also humbles me, which is not always pleasant, but is always good.

Absolute props to you for putting in 5 hrs! Unless someone has actually done it, they just don't realize what a 5-8 hour session really takes. It can be quite torturous. Keep at it Chad! I look forward to hearing more about tomorrows visit (even if it's more of the same). However, dunno why, but I just have a good feeling you're gonna get it! Or maybe you'll make some good headway, and the next visit will be the one.

Thanks, Mike... I know if a lock like this can flummox you, then I can't feel too bad that it's giving me trouble. Honestly, I went into this one with no idea if I'd actually be able to get into it... really just wanted the opportunity to get my hands on one of these and see what they were all about. I definitely didn't expect it to be easy or quick by any stretch of the imagination. I'm looking forward to giving it another go tomorrow, even after the last session was so disheartening... went into it feeling so confident I was close... On the plus side, I feel like I've got a much better feel for that lock now and maybe some of the things I was doing wrong -- or at least not exactly right -- so hopefully I can get a little better consistency with my speed and handling and start fresh tomorrow with better "tools." Definitely not ready to give up on it yet. Even with the setback I'm still pretty confident I'll get it eventually, and when I do I'm gonna feel really good about myself, and that's keeping me going.

Oldfast wrote:On the dial: Yeah, definitely can't hurt to see if you're able to get it runnin' smoother. Every little bit helps. Unless there's something I dunno, that dial should pull straight off. Though I can understand your reluctance. Maybe slowly but progressively get more aggressive with it. Naturally, be sure and note the orientation of the dial before removing it so you can replace it the same way.

I'll give that a shot... I just took out the screw and gave it a wiggle, and it felt like it was still hooked on something, but maybe just sticky. Keeping an eye on the orientation is a good tip I might have not thought of... I assumed there would be some kind of indexing spline or some such, but maybe not the case. Better to be safe than sorry. I do think if I could get rid of the squeak I'd improve my odds considerably, so worth giving a try.

I'll keep ya posted... thanks for the tips, and wish me luck :)
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L4R3L2

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Post Wed Mar 20, 2019 11:56 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

I'm root'n for you, Chad. I'm confident your perseverance will pay off, and am looking forward to the opening.
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madsamurai

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Post Thu Mar 21, 2019 4:17 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

So another 6 hours today brings it to about 20 so far... still not open, but today was a really good day and I made some major progress.

Tried to take the dial off first, but still wasn't able to figure out how to do that... the screw and cap on the knob come off, but then there looked to be some sort of spring clips and a spline key on a threaded brass rod keeping it all together... the spring clips didn't seem to be all that springy and I didn't want to damage them, and the spline key was not exposed enough to grab on to pull out, so I just left it intact and squished a little white grease around the outer rim and under the edge of the dial... didn't completely get rid of the squeak, but it DID improve the feel of the dial significantly, to the point where now I can actually feel and measure the RCP (woohoo!).

So with that, I ditched the headphones and did a series of new scans and now I have measurable potential gates on all 4 wheels... I've reduced the final RCP reading from about 7 on the dial to just a bit under 6. I think I have w1, I'm mid-rescan on w2 but think I've found a better spot than what I've been working with, and have a couple of potential gates on each of w3 and w4. Feeling much better about things now that I can measure my contact point.

Back for another shot on Monday, really hoping that's gonna be the big day.
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MartinHewitt

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Post Thu Mar 21, 2019 4:21 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

Samurai, so I'm sure you will be able to show us next the dead spiders and have now a good story how your name became Mad Samurai. This look sounds even more mad than a 6630.
In case you wonder ... Martin Hewitt is a fictional detective in stories by Arthur Morrison:
Martin Hewitt, Investigator Chronicles of Martin Hewitt
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Squelchtone

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Post Thu Mar 21, 2019 5:10 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

madsamuri: I'm just catching up on threads, good to know about the sound thing, looks I need more time on different locks. I'm actually opening a safe for someone Saturday, I will bring my audio amp and head phones along and see if they help this time.

Thanks for helping me reconsider things,
Squelchtone
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madsamurai

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Post Thu Mar 21, 2019 5:41 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

MartinHewitt wrote:Samurai, so I'm sure you will be able to show us next the dead spiders and have now a good story how your name became Mad Samurai. This look sounds even more mad than a 6630.

LOL, I'm sure the next one will go much faster ;)

Also, I've worked out a couple of little tricks along the way that will be helpful... first, self-fusing silicon tape is awesome for slick, cold dials... much better grip and control, and doesn't leave any gooey residue. I was going to buy rubber bands for this, but Ron offered this stuff up, and it's fantastic. Second, today I cut a corner off the sticky side of a pack of post-it notes and made sticky pointers to put on the dial for the numbers I'm dialing. I immediately stopped dialing past numbers, forgetting numbers, etc, and sped things up quite a bit, especially after 4-5 hours when your brain is starting to melt and you're scanning w1 on a 4-wheeler against 3 other numbers.

Besides, what else am I gonna do? watch TV? outside sucks right now, and all my other hobbies are outside hobbies...
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madsamurai

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Post Thu Mar 21, 2019 5:56 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

Squelchtone wrote:madsamuri: I'm just catching up on threads, good to know about the sound thing, looks I need more time on different locks. I'm actually opening a safe for someone Saturday, I will bring my audio amp and head phones along and see if they help this time.

Thanks for helping me reconsider things,
Squelchtone


Well, you weren't exactly wrong, either... I am working by feel now, I think because I've been working on it so long now I've developed a better sensitivity to it (and greasing the dial helped a lot, too). I do think it helped to get this lock started and to a point where there was enough of a drop-in to feel things, but can't say for sure if it would be necessary if I had already had the amount of practice I've got now. Sound helped to a point, but then it got to be more confusing than helpful, and now that I can feel and measure the RCP, I've noticed the sound doesn't necessarily improve with a better RCP reading.

Still, I'm glad I had it available and I'm pretty sure I would have been at a loss without it... Better to have and not need than need and not have, right? I think I might look into getting a better one, maybe with an EQ built-in so I can filter out some non-helpful frequencies. I'm using a cheap-o chinese instrument mic with a pocket guitar practice amplifier. It works surprisingly well considering I've got less than $20 in the whole setup, but it is a bit hissy and occasionally picks up interference from phones and stuff.
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Oldfast

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OldddffAASSTT the Spin Master Extraordinaire and American Lock Slayer
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Post Thu Mar 21, 2019 6:13 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

Ohhhh yeah. Damn, this is sounding very promising. How exciting?! :spinning:

The dial; yep, definitely more to removing it than the one I messed with.
" Enjoy the journey AS MUCH as the destination."
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madsamurai

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Post Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:57 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

So, heavy sigh...

After another couple of sessions, I've started feeling more... that sounds like a good thing, but the problem now is I have lost confidence in exactly what I'm feeling... I am confident the LCP/drop-in point is at 0 and I've been working with a RCP around 5-6. There's a feelable release of friction as you go past 0 that tells me I've fallen in the gate of the drive cam. I can also feel a contact at 6, and even worked that lower to 5ish, but it's not terribly consistent and often I find if I go back and redial the numbers that got me feeling optimistic, they contact at 6 again and I can't really tell a difference in reading between what I thought was a low number and some arbitrary comparison point.

Near the end of my session last week, I started feeling and hearing a new contact at 3... so if I turned thru I'd feel the drop at 0, then a tap at 3 as well as at 5-6. I wasn't sure what to make of this, whether it was progress or gear noise, so going in today I planned on following it and seeing where it led me. After a good deal of futzing around, it seems the gear noise is becoming more apparent in what I'm feeling now, and that the gear clicks are approximately 3 digits apart pretty much anywhere on the dial. That's got me feeling like maybe the RCP at 6 maybe isn't a contact point, but just the second click of the gears after the drop, and I've sorta lost my confidence about my readings overall... it would certainly explain why I seem to keep coming up with different numbers each time I come back to the lock.

So I feel like now I'm at a bit of an impasse... I'm over 30 hours on this thing and I'm not sure what I'm chasing. What I really need is one of these locks that isn't in a safe so I can study how the dial feels and indicates with different known wheel positions, so I can see what's really happening when I feel the things I feel. I know it's asking a bit, since these seem to be somewhat rare and expensive, but if anyone has one I could borrow for a week or two, I can promise I will treat it with immaculate care. If anyone has one they'd like to sell, I'm game for that, too, but I'm not in a position where that's exactly financially ideal right now so borrowing is a much preferred option if it's available. Feel free to PM me if you've got one and are open to either, or if you know of anyone else or find an auction post or whatever. Same for any literature, books, or online info you think might help... I really want to open this thing...
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00247

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Post Thu Apr 04, 2019 9:05 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

madsamurai wrote:So, heavy sigh... After a good deal of futzing around, it seems the gear noise is becoming more apparent in what I'm feeling now, and that the gear clicks are approximately 3 digits apart pretty much anywhere on the dial.


I have been eagerly waiting for an update, Chad. I expected to see a new avatar picture with fists full of hair off your head and beard from frustration. lol

On the 3 digit clicks: The indirect drive lock in my National has 30 teeth on the drive gears so that is ~3.3 numbers per tooth on a 100 number dial. If you recall when I had the lockout on the National due to the improperly stamped timing marks on the gears, I had discovered the 30 count gears from pictures and shifted the combination by 3 numbers and was fortunate to have it work. So you are figuring it out!

Personally I can't see how there can be enough feedback on a indirect drive friction fence lock. I'm rooting for you but would probably bet against you. It's a bet I would love to lose. Keep at it!
It is time... stand up for a constitutional America. Without it, we have shed blood in vain.
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Oldfast

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OldddffAASSTT the Spin Master Extraordinaire and American Lock Slayer
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Post Fri Apr 05, 2019 9:59 pm

Re: Old Mosler safe with locked inner door, what type lock.

.

Man, it's a hard pill to swallow (speaking for myself anyway). As I mentioned, I've been struggling with a similar lock near me.

And such a roller-coaster ride, just as you've described! I've had multiple 'breakthroughs' where I was absolutely convinced I would have it open within the coming hour... then... nothing, lol. It's almost like it's feeding me juuuust enough to keep me coming back. Sometimes I just chuckle in disbelief as I hop in my car. Other times, I just can't help but give it the nod of respect it deserves on my way out. And before you know it, I'm back again saying... "So, we meet again my old friend". lol

I'm always leery to deem a lock difficult as it instantly creates a mental barrier for me. Also, the next one of the same exact design could be significantly easier, as we've all experienced. But I think it's fairly safe to say that generally this design is a true challenge for manipulators. I believe I'm just gonna have to taste failure a number times in order to get truly acquainted and consistent with these. For that reason, I'm always ready and willing to receive a good beat down from one. :)

madsamurai wrote:....self-fusing silicon tape is awesome for slick, cold dials... much better grip and control, and doesn't leave any gooey residue. I was going to buy rubber bands for this, but Ron offered this stuff up, and it's fantastic....

I'm glad you mentioned this. A while back I ordered some Grifiti Band Joes for this purpose. And they work nice on the very rare occasions when I use 'em... but the silicon tape seems like a great idea! I will have to give this a try some time.

p.s. So Ron :) after hangin' out with Chad for a bit...
whatta ya think - gonna start spinnin'? Or not for you?
" Enjoy the journey AS MUCH as the destination."
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