Got this open today

[Mikeh727]

Hello all,

This is a Keep Safe by John D Brush and Co, which is now Sentry. It belongs to a friend of a friend who discovered it in the basement of a house they bought. The previous owners said it was there when they bought the house, and no one had the combination. My friend knows about my hobby/addiction to safes and stopped by this evening and dropped it off and asked if I could get it open.

Here's a picture with my laser pointer taped to the handle.





The dial felt a little wonky. It's a direct entry safe, so I put pressure on the handle and drug all the wheels around left. I found the third number easily that way and confirmed it was the third number by isolating the drive cam (where the third number is on these things). But something weird seemed to be going on. I could spin wheels left and if I put a lot of pressure on the handle, I could feel the shape of the wheels but the dial would stick in a couple of places. At first I thought I might have found all three gates! But, when I spun the other way, I felt the other two dials pick up where those sticking points were. Ummm...

They shouldn't have been there, they should have been where I stopped dialing. But they weren't, they had dropped off at the couple of sticking points I had found. I'm a hobbyist so there is much more that I don't know about safes than there is that I do know, but I've never had this happen before. Well, okay, to be fair, it's my second DE safe. But still, it seemed weird.

I was afraid something was broken, or worse that I had broken it. But playing around with the dial some more I could get everything to pick up correctly where it should be, so I continued with the manipulation. I did figure out what was happening after I opened it...I'll explain at the end.

The manipulation.

I used a laser pointer taped to the handle and a piece of cardboard to keep track of the lows. I was surprised there were no false gates but the first gate jumped out like a sore thumb at 30. I assumed that it was on W3 so I isolated that and confirmed it.

Then, I tried W1 and W2 AR with W3 parked at it's gate. Things were jumping all over the place. At first I thought it was inconsistent pressure on the handle (I was just using hand pressure, no rubber bands). But after playing around a bit I realized that the lock just had weird highs and lows. I didn't like that so I decided to park W1 at the known gate for W3 and spin W2 in isolation. That went much better and I found an unmistakable gate signature at 50. I amplified and determined 49.5 to be the center of that gate. At this point, if all went well, the manipulation is pretty much over.

I started brute forcing W1 with W2 and W3 at their gates and the safe opened at 10. L10-R50-L30. Sounds liike a default combination from the factory to me! I don't know all of those, but the combo wasn't that creative

So, what the heck was going on when the wheels were seeming to stop when they shouldn't have? I opened up the door to take a look. The lever put so much pressure on the wheelpack that I could stop the the wheels with enough pressure. The combination is a screw change type. I didn't take the lock apart since it isn't mine, but it was weird to see the wheels stopping while I spun the dial.

The lock.



So there you have it

Thanks for reading the tale!

-Mike

[oldbiscuit]

Great job Mike, but now I want to know, was there anything in the safe ? besides stale air?

[Mikeh727]

Besides D.B. Coopers money and the Holy Grail, there was nothing but an old pen and a few paper clips

-Mike

[shadowlock]

Excellent job Mike! I cant wait to start learning to open those type of safes as well. In my copy of NLGM it explains several types of combo locks, but since I'm just starting out I'm concentrating on just spring fence lever locks. Once, I'm really comfortable with those I'm sure I'll move on to other types. I would really like to learn how the laser pointer method. I've read other people's stories on this site that mention the same method to open these type of locks.

Nice write up.

Rick
Shadowlock

[Altashot]

Good job!
Isn't the laser trick awesome!?
How far away was the laser pointing and how big is the dot? So far I found that 3 feet is sufficient, but I haven't tried farther, and my laser dot is about 1/8".

It's kind of strange about the hang ups you felt, from your picture, the drive cam/3rd wheel, looks to be the same diameter or slightly bigger than the other 2...? Normally, the cam is larger to camouflage the 1st and 2nd wheels, so all you can feel while dragging the fence on the wheel pack is the cam. In you case, if the drive cam IS the same diameter or only slightly larger maybe what you felt WERE the gates. Maybe the fence is bent a little, allowing you to feel the entire wheel pack...?
Another thing I often see are, burrs or irregularities upon a wheel's circumference. This is caused by a manufacturing prossess that employs a punch and anvil to punch the wheels out of sheet metal. The sheering of the metal leaves burrs, especially if the punch and corresponding die are worn.

Any how, I'm raising my glass to you...


I bet you friend was impressed, and now he has a small fire resistant safe he can actually use because he knew the right guy...Awesome for the both you...

M.

[Mikeh727]

Hi Max,

Good to hear from you, and thanks for the kudos!

Good job!
Isn't the laser trick awesome!?
How far away was the laser pointing and how big is the dot? So far I found that 3 feet is sufficient, but I haven't tried farther, and my laser dot is about 1/8".

The safe was sitting on the floor and instead of placing a target vertically so that it was essentially perpendicular to the pointer at rest, I placed the target on the floor. That was easier to do in the space that I have. I was surprised at how well this worked. My readings ranged from about two feet to about three feet away, which made it VERY easy to see even slight indications. And since this safe didn't do anything slightly, it was pretty easy to see a gate since the indication moved by over an inch. This picture isn't incredibly clear but you can see how even the slightest indication would move the dot fairly far just due to the geometry. My dot size ranged from just over 1/8" when it was closest to just over 1/4" at its farthest, again due to the geometry.

It's kind of strange about the hang ups you felt, from your picture, the drive cam/3rd wheel, looks to be the same diameter or slightly bigger than the other 2...? Normally, the cam is larger to camouflage the 1st and 2nd wheels, so all you can feel while dragging the fence on the wheel pack is the cam. In you case, if the drive cam IS the same diameter or only slightly larger maybe what you felt WERE the gates. Maybe the fence is bent a little, allowing you to feel the entire wheel pack...?
Another thing I often see are, burrs or irregularities upon a wheel's circumference. This is caused by a manufacturing prossess that employs a punch and anvil to punch the wheels out of sheet metal. The sheering of the metal leaves burrs, especially if the punch and corresponding die are worn.

Well at first I thought it was just bigger but it's a little bigger and very eccentric. I found some other interesting things when I took a closer look at this lock. First, take a look at this picture.



This is the fence and clearly it has been marred by the wheels, especially W3. I assume this is probably from people messing with the safe over the years and putting force on the handle while spinning the wheel. You can also see some small irregularities in W3 that would cause a bump in the handle. But what's really interesting to me is that little 'hump' on the fence back by W1. Again, the picture isn't entirely clear but that little hump on the fence looks like it's supposed to ride on W1, which at some times means you are feeling W1 but at other times the high side of W3 comes around and your feeling W3. You can see additional metal that runs downward in the picture and that is simply part of the bolt and fence mechanism, but doesn't interfere with the wheels. But the little hump in the fence at the top does ride W1. It's kind of an interesting design feature, or at least I think it's a design feature...

You can see that it also is marred, again I assume from force placed on the handle and spinning the wheels.

So when I was spinning all wheels, I did actually feel the gate on W1 and W3, but the other sticking point I found was just a nub on the wheel. Of course I hoped I had found all three gates and tried the combinations but they didn't work, so the only gate I actually confirmed was on W3.

As for the wheels dropping off, that came from me placing too much force on the handle. Again, you may be able to see some wear on the 'hump' at the back of the fence. This is because with enough force, you can force that hump behind W1 which deflects W1 and W2 towards the cam, W3. Here's a picture.



Notice the decreased space between W1 and W2 compared to that of W2 and W3. This deflection was enough to keep W1 and W2 from spinning, even when they had been spinning together before placing that force on the handle.

I assume the ability to deform the wheel pack is from wear over time and someone really wrenching on the handle at some point, probably many times, in an effort to get into the safe. But once the pressure is removed, all the wheels operate normally and the combination always works.

If this were my safe, I think I would probably grind off that hump in the back so that too much force can't deflect the wheels. That certainly wouldn't affect the operation of the safe and as far as decreasing security at all...well...you know.

Any how, I'm raising my glass to you...


I bet you friend was impressed, and now he has a small fire resistant safe he can actually use because he knew the right guy...Awesome for the both you...

M.

Thanks Max! He was pretty impressed and I'll be talking to him about the dangers of too much pressure on the handle. I would be worried that eventually something might give way and then I'd get to learn how to drill a safe!

Also, if you have anything to add or a even completely different analysis, I'd love to hear it. I'm a hobbyist, you're a professional. Any insight that you might have would be welcomed and appreciated!

Mike