Tue Aug 27, 2013 7:46 pm
Squelchtone's first successful safe manipulation
Hi Everybody,
I have been picking pin tumbler locks since 2005, but only became interested in safe locks when I visited Lockmasters for Lockcon 2012 last Summer. I'm only focusing on safe locks this year, and it's been a fun but bumpy ride so far. Some of you who hang out in chat know that a few months ago I tried to manipulate an S&G6700 that was on an AMSEC safe I bought on craigslist with a forgotten combination, but it wasn't giving up it's secrets and I ended up scoping it through the change key hole in order to open it. That was fun and I learned a lot, but it was not very rewarding.
I haven't honestly had much time to practice manipulation all summer, but thanks to Oldfast, LibertyClicks, femurat, Don, and so many others I finally understand the procedure and that's the one thing that always stumped me, the actual x-y-z steps. For a while I could graph All Wheels Left or All Wheels Right and figure out one of the numbers, then I did the tests to figure out which wheel that number was. Since all wheels were being turned and graphed at the same time, it was easy, but I felt like I hit a brick wall every time I went to the next step. I just wasn't sure how to park wheels and dial the smart way so I didn't have to keep dialing the long way of 4L 3R 2L 1R, so I thank all of you who posted your findings, your manipulations and all the cool tips and tricks which in the end helped me find the confidence to turn that dial and open my first safe with an unknown combination.
I like the format Oldfast posts his manipulations in, but I won't try to copy it here. Ok, Im copying the
faces he uses for unknown numbers, that always gave me a good chuckle.
I guess I should start by saying that I'm a huge fan of Mosler safes, especially old ones. So pretty much every day, when I find my self on ebay, I search for "Mosler safe" the other week, a seller shows up with a very unique and interesting Mosler safe, unlike anything I had ever seen.
Here is a photo of it:
wait a minute.. Squelchtone, are you stoned? that's a set of old books man, that's not a safe...
but wait...
let's take a closer look..
nope, WTF man, it's just old books, seriously man, I came to see a safe.
ok ok.. check THIS out:
Whaaaaaaaaa? no way! yeah, that's what I said too, how cool is that shit? A factory made Mosler diversion safe made to look like an old set of books. The front doors are not real books, they are cast aluminum which has paper, gold leaf, and material glued to it. There are little spring loaded ball bearings which make sure the doors stay shut, the ball bearings push out into little craters milled into the safe body. The top of the books are painted wood, and the covers are cardboard and some fake leather and brown paint.
I had to have it. The seller had just sold another one just like it which he got at an estate sale, and even though this one was a little more beat up, I decided to make an offer.
$125 dollars and 4 hours total of driving to Schenectady, New York and back, and I was the proud owner.
One problem. No combination! Of course you know that's 50% of the reason I bought this thing.
Here it is with an S&G6730 in front of it so you can get a sense of scale. It is 18 inches wide, 11 inches tall, and 10 inches deep (twss)
The dial made me think this was a Mosler 302 lock, but i was confused because I can't for the life of me tell how old this safe is. 1950's? 1970's? I cannot tell. I just know the Mosler 302 is a more modern lock and this safe felt older.
OK, Graph 1:
I marked it up a little so you can follow along. I started at around midnight, and you'll notice the time written down next to certain times I found out certain information or thought I had a number in the combination.
If you look at the green area, right from the beginning, it looked like 5 was something interesting. I amplified it and sure enough the shape of a gate. Some tests were done to see which wheel it was and it was wheel #1
5 - -
60 to 62.5 also looked like a gate the first time I graphed All Wheels Left, but if you look at the orange box, you can see it was just a low spot, as the amplified section is pretty much a flat line. 27 1/2 and 57 1/2 also looked like something, so I ran through some test combinations but came up empty.
At this point I was happy to at least find 1 number, so I opened a beer and started to watch some TV. Figure I have months and months to open this safe at my own leisure.
After a beer or two and some quality 1am TV programming I found myself back in front of the safe. I didn't want to go to sleep without graphing 5-x-x to see what else was there.
Graph 2:
Since I was dialing L5 on the 1st wheel, I would end up graphing wheel 2 and 3 backwards from 99 to 1, so right in the beginning I saw that 70 had something going on that was worth noting, but then I started to lose hope when the graph started going all over the place from 60 down to 30. It made this big hump, I 've never seen anything like it, and I'm going to say it was a high spot, but anyone who has more experience is welcome to correct me on this assumption.
I also noted that 10 and 30 looked like possible gates, and I marked them with arrows. 70 however looked like the best thing on the whole graph so I ran some tests to see if it was 5 - - 70 or if it was 5 - 70 -
Luckily it was 5 - 70 - so I knew I had to stay awake and just dial 5 - 70 - and then go through 0-99 on the last number and keep turning back to the drop in which I assumed would be near 0 to test if I was on the right number. I was hoping for 5 - 70 - 30 and was sad when the safe did not open, so kept turning the dial and going back to the drop in, when suddenly the fence dropped in and the dial stopped dead at 86.
5- 70 - 40 OPEN!
I was very excited, and totally surprised I got it open on the first attempt. Best 2 hours ever! =) (I don't even know how much time was spent graphing vs. drinking beer and watching tv, so I'm gonna just call it 2 hours.)
This is probably the best part of the whole story:
This isn't just a regular old Made in Ohio Mosler. This is a Mosler made by Mosler of Mexico!!! I have a feeling I have a very rare safe here, if anyone knows any history on this model, please get in touch.
There is one interesting thing to note. The lock is not a Mosler 302, nor is it a Mosler 120. It is a generic clone of the S&G 6709. I saw a Meilink safe with this exact lock in a Dave McOmie book, this is where I read it is a copy of the S&G 6709. The wheels are plastic and it is a hand change lock. Reminds me of Oldfast's Vanguard safe with the yellow wheel pack, that is an actual S&G 6709 I believe. You can tell the differences by looking at the Zamak casting in the lock case. There is a number on the lever fence assembly, but I cannot find it using google, so I am not sure who made this lock for Mosler of Mexico.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my cool new safe and enjoyed the photos as well, I'm a happy camper right now and looking forward to more practice on other safes and mounted safe locks.
Squelchtone
I have been picking pin tumbler locks since 2005, but only became interested in safe locks when I visited Lockmasters for Lockcon 2012 last Summer. I'm only focusing on safe locks this year, and it's been a fun but bumpy ride so far. Some of you who hang out in chat know that a few months ago I tried to manipulate an S&G6700 that was on an AMSEC safe I bought on craigslist with a forgotten combination, but it wasn't giving up it's secrets and I ended up scoping it through the change key hole in order to open it. That was fun and I learned a lot, but it was not very rewarding.
I haven't honestly had much time to practice manipulation all summer, but thanks to Oldfast, LibertyClicks, femurat, Don, and so many others I finally understand the procedure and that's the one thing that always stumped me, the actual x-y-z steps. For a while I could graph All Wheels Left or All Wheels Right and figure out one of the numbers, then I did the tests to figure out which wheel that number was. Since all wheels were being turned and graphed at the same time, it was easy, but I felt like I hit a brick wall every time I went to the next step. I just wasn't sure how to park wheels and dial the smart way so I didn't have to keep dialing the long way of 4L 3R 2L 1R, so I thank all of you who posted your findings, your manipulations and all the cool tips and tricks which in the end helped me find the confidence to turn that dial and open my first safe with an unknown combination.
I like the format Oldfast posts his manipulations in, but I won't try to copy it here. Ok, Im copying the
faces he uses for unknown numbers, that always gave me a good chuckle. I guess I should start by saying that I'm a huge fan of Mosler safes, especially old ones. So pretty much every day, when I find my self on ebay, I search for "Mosler safe" the other week, a seller shows up with a very unique and interesting Mosler safe, unlike anything I had ever seen.
Here is a photo of it:
wait a minute.. Squelchtone, are you stoned? that's a set of old books man, that's not a safe...
but wait...
let's take a closer look..
nope, WTF man, it's just old books, seriously man, I came to see a safe.
ok ok.. check THIS out:
Whaaaaaaaaa? no way! yeah, that's what I said too, how cool is that shit? A factory made Mosler diversion safe made to look like an old set of books. The front doors are not real books, they are cast aluminum which has paper, gold leaf, and material glued to it. There are little spring loaded ball bearings which make sure the doors stay shut, the ball bearings push out into little craters milled into the safe body. The top of the books are painted wood, and the covers are cardboard and some fake leather and brown paint.
I had to have it. The seller had just sold another one just like it which he got at an estate sale, and even though this one was a little more beat up, I decided to make an offer.
$125 dollars and 4 hours total of driving to Schenectady, New York and back, and I was the proud owner.
One problem. No combination! Of course you know that's 50% of the reason I bought this thing.
Here it is with an S&G6730 in front of it so you can get a sense of scale. It is 18 inches wide, 11 inches tall, and 10 inches deep (twss)
The dial made me think this was a Mosler 302 lock, but i was confused because I can't for the life of me tell how old this safe is. 1950's? 1970's? I cannot tell. I just know the Mosler 302 is a more modern lock and this safe felt older.
OK, Graph 1:
I marked it up a little so you can follow along. I started at around midnight, and you'll notice the time written down next to certain times I found out certain information or thought I had a number in the combination.
If you look at the green area, right from the beginning, it looked like 5 was something interesting. I amplified it and sure enough the shape of a gate. Some tests were done to see which wheel it was and it was wheel #1
5 -
- 60 to 62.5 also looked like a gate the first time I graphed All Wheels Left, but if you look at the orange box, you can see it was just a low spot, as the amplified section is pretty much a flat line. 27 1/2 and 57 1/2 also looked like something, so I ran through some test combinations but came up empty.
At this point I was happy to at least find 1 number, so I opened a beer and started to watch some TV. Figure I have months and months to open this safe at my own leisure.
After a beer or two and some quality 1am TV programming I found myself back in front of the safe. I didn't want to go to sleep without graphing 5-x-x to see what else was there.
Graph 2:
Since I was dialing L5 on the 1st wheel, I would end up graphing wheel 2 and 3 backwards from 99 to 1, so right in the beginning I saw that 70 had something going on that was worth noting, but then I started to lose hope when the graph started going all over the place from 60 down to 30. It made this big hump, I 've never seen anything like it, and I'm going to say it was a high spot, but anyone who has more experience is welcome to correct me on this assumption.
I also noted that 10 and 30 looked like possible gates, and I marked them with arrows. 70 however looked like the best thing on the whole graph so I ran some tests to see if it was 5 -
- 70 or if it was 5 - 70 - Luckily it was 5 - 70 -
so I knew I had to stay awake and just dial 5 - 70 - and then go through 0-99 on the last number and keep turning back to the drop in which I assumed would be near 0 to test if I was on the right number. I was hoping for 5 - 70 - 30 and was sad when the safe did not open, so kept turning the dial and going back to the drop in, when suddenly the fence dropped in and the dial stopped dead at 86.5- 70 - 40 OPEN!
I was very excited, and totally surprised I got it open on the first attempt. Best 2 hours ever! =) (I don't even know how much time was spent graphing vs. drinking beer and watching tv, so I'm gonna just call it 2 hours.)
This is probably the best part of the whole story:
This isn't just a regular old Made in Ohio Mosler. This is a Mosler made by Mosler of Mexico!!! I have a feeling I have a very rare safe here, if anyone knows any history on this model, please get in touch.
There is one interesting thing to note. The lock is not a Mosler 302, nor is it a Mosler 120. It is a generic clone of the S&G 6709. I saw a Meilink safe with this exact lock in a Dave McOmie book, this is where I read it is a copy of the S&G 6709. The wheels are plastic and it is a hand change lock. Reminds me of Oldfast's Vanguard safe with the yellow wheel pack, that is an actual S&G 6709 I believe. You can tell the differences by looking at the Zamak casting in the lock case. There is a number on the lever fence assembly, but I cannot find it using google, so I am not sure who made this lock for Mosler of Mexico.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my cool new safe and enjoyed the photos as well, I'm a happy camper right now and looking forward to more practice on other safes and mounted safe locks.
Squelchtone
Last edited by Squelchtone on Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:02 am, edited 3 times in total.
