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Interesting story about the bank. That is going to be one hell of an investigation.


Every farmer "knows" that you always have a few parts left over... I guess this one now knows that some of those parts are quite important That is a really nice dial.

I'm glad you all liked it.

It's a damn good thing I don't have to drill hard plate everyday.
That night, I couldn't even make a fist, my forearms hurt too bad.
My wife decided she wanted to jam with me on our guitars, I could barely make chords...
I was sore for a couple days.

Yes, hard plate is THAT hard and this one was just regular hard plate.
I don't think that one was any more than tempered steel. The carbide tip created enough heat to turn the steel blue.
The metal chips coming out of the hole were a dark blue.
When it turns blue, it is annealing, which means, softening. It is more workable when annealed,
but it's still really hard, because you always expose a new hard surface...

I've encountered some really, really hard stuff too. Some types have carbide chips
embedded throughout the hard plate. It's not that it is really harder but it sure wrecks the drill bits fast. As the carbide chips break off and your drill bit chip off you end up with a very abrasive powder that grinds the bit to a stump. You spend more time changing bits than drilling.

Another nasty thing found in some safes is a bearing pack. Essentially, it is hard plate, but in a honey comb pattern.
Each "cell" has a free spinning ball bearing peened over in them. So, to get through, you pretty much have to liberate
a ball or more out of it's/their cell (s). During that process, many bit will snag between balls and snap off. Now you end up with a broken bit in the hole. Sometimes they come out easy, sometimes they're really stuck and have to be punched to be broken in little pieces that can be removed. Then you can keep drilling, more often than not, in another hard plate.

It's not always fun. Standing in front of a safe holding a drill using all the muscles in your entire body. The vibrations make your hands and arms numb, to the point of clumsiness. Your hands get slippery with sweat and your head and ears "buzz"...
Once the deed is done, the adrenaline rewards you immediately so that you can fix it and clean up before you leave.
On the way home, when the adrenaline rush winds down, you start to hurt and stiffen up, time for Ultra Strength Bengay.

It's a whole body experience, but I'd do it again, like I have many times before...
...For "that moment"...

M.

But the movies make it look soooo easy. Only take like 30 seconds to a minute. What are you doing wrong???

Bet you love it when you have a customer saying that over your shoulder.

Gordon

Might be a stupid question, why not use a mag drill? No sore arms.

This was very fun to read. Thanks, Alta!

I have often wondered how "hard" hardplate actually is! I was astonished to learn it took over 2 hours to drill through 3/8 of material--I wouldn't have guessed it would take that long. Do you take masontry bits and adjust the angle of attack or use carbide bits designed for metal?

Trevor

I get the smart ass comments like that sometimes, I have a variety of smart ass answers too.

-The only stupid questions are those that are not asked.- M.

The reason I don't use a magnetic drill is that they don't hold strong enough.
I have to press so hard on the lever to generate the amount of pressure needed that it would kill my arms in no time. That, and the electro-magnet comes off the surface long before the proper pressure can be achieved. Then I end up with a broken bit in the hole. Another thing that happened often was that it kept tripping the circuit breakers. I think maybe the magnet AND the motor is too much for a household circuit?
Again, the bit breaks in the hole. Another reason that perhaps is responsible for their failure is that they are not meant to be used in a vertical position. When one of these decides to let go, you better be ready, these thing are heavy and, steel toes or not, you don't want one coming down on you feet...Or the nice tiled/carpeted/hardwood floor...Also, in the case of my last victim, the metal was not very thick. A magnet will hold onto a piece of 4" thick steel way stronger than on 1/4".

The bits I use are masonry bit that I sharpen to have a proper angle of attack. I use a special and very expensive grinding wheel to reshape the carbide tip. I find them to be more flexible than safe bits, therefore more forgiving.
Not quite as good as dedicated safe bits, but way cheaper and way less brittle.
The "best bang for your bucks"

M.

I cracked another vault.
A Chubb-Mosler and Taylor.

The call came in at about 12:30, a mortgage and investments kind of institution was locked out since that morning.
I had just finished a re-key at a Hotel and I was hungry. I picked up fast food, got ready and left at 1:30 or so.
It was out of town, quite a ways, about a 3 hour drive. I arrived at 4:30, half and hour before closing time.
I was told that the bottom comb wouldn't open. It always did before but not today, they tried all morning.
From experience, I know these people lie to me all the time. They never want to admit when they fu*ked up.
I guess they're afraid of getting in sh*t with they're superiors and they invent all sorts of stories
that often don't make any sense...But, I know what questions to ask and how to ask them,
and I've become a pretty good judge of character.
Like Frank Colombo, head cocked, squinty eye: "Oh! uhh, one more thing..."
...I normally decipher the truth. But this time, there was no need to "pull the truth" out, I believed her, she was genuine.

As always, I looked after my comfort and I pulled a chair to the door. I trusted the manager, so I approached the lock
with malfunction in mind, not a fu*k up. I could tell it was old, It had those clear plastic dials and rings. They were all
yellowed and cracked. It felt old too, sloppy, gritty, screechy, it was warped a little and it was hard to read from a faded index. I grabbed my Lock Amp and started my diagnostics. The business was now closed and the manager had to stay, so 2 other employee decided to stay as well and, "hang out". They were joking around, LOL'ing and talking behind other employees backs. I don't like this kind Of BS, it annoys me and I was trying to listen to the lock so I "smart ass-ly" said: "Don't go talking behind MY back,I can hear everything with this thing" I was pointing at my Amp.
The two loud mouths left and Mrs. manager apologized for their behavior.

I had the numbers in hand, but started a "mini manipulation" to verify the numbers, just to be sure. I could easily find the first 2 but not the last 2. I did finally find the third number, but not where it was supposed to be? Maybe a wheel slipped, and if it did, the last wheel would be off it's number too.
The third # was off by 32 so I adjusted the last wheel to match that 32 shift, but no, didn't work.
I spun AWL and started over, 1st gate, OK. 2nd gate, OK. So far so good, then the third gate, 32 away from where it should be and...Nope, it's not there anymore??? I tested it a few more times to no avail, it moved again???
I ended up finding it again but no where near where it was.... Fu*k!!! That wheel didn't slip, it's fu*king UNLOCKED!!!
So I left it parked there, I wasn't going to go chasing that gate again. then, I very, very, verrrrry gently moved the last wheel,
I was hoping that the 3rd wheel would stay put and only the inner hub would turn. I moved it in 2 increments after checking the CP's until the fence dropped in. It took 2 hours but I got it...
I turned the handle, pulled the door opened, got that instant
hormonal euphoric gratification and proceeded to repair it. It turned out that the last TWO wheel were unlocked...
I was all done at 7:00, had supper and arrived home at 10:30.
What a day! A fourteen hour day...

I told the tale to a fellow safecracker as having "safeman"s luck"...
He replied: "You wouldn't have "safeman's luck" if you weren't a SAFEMAN...You knew what you were doing...
...And, YOU did it...You're one hell of a safeman"

Man! Do I ever love my profession, it's right after sex...

http://s1155.photobucket.com/user/Altas ... ult%20door

M.

Oh! And inside, a bunch of lockers all fitted with S and G's and thousands of SD boxes...

Nice job. I am guessing that the inside parts of the wheels that grip the middle part broke or bent after so many years?

Dang, that's a great job! And imo fairly quick too for something like that! I would've been there for years banging my head against the wall before I figured out what was happening


After? Well, I guess we all have different priorities lol I'm just weird

From MY experience, I'm going to say, it wasn't a malfunction, it was an I D 10 T error!!! (someone tried to "save a buck" and "do a combo change themselves" but didn't have the change key inserted properly.)

VERY fun read Alta.
Always so grateful that you take the time to put some of experiences into words.
And, the added treat of pictures this time! I know you cannot always do that.



I found this funny... but I can see that But geez as if the locks aren't difficult enough. Then you have people with
their OWN agenda feeding you information. So now you find yourself having to manipulate the employees too! Ha!

Another safe cracked!

Locksmith "x" asked me to open it for him. He doesn't have much experience with safes, he's more of a hardware installer...
Even though I told him that those are pretty easy and it would be a good one to learn on, he decided to have me do it.
He said he'd take the class on manipulation at the next locksmith convention.

-It's a TDL fire resistant safe, much like that little Crown I wrote about a while back. It is also an open gate type of lock.
This one is equipped with a dial, 3 wheels plus drive cam and a keyed lock. The boltwork retracts with a spring loaded handle.
First, I put pressure on the handle and spun the dial. It spun free, the fence was not dragging on the drive cam, therefore,
I knew the keyed lock was blocking the boltwork. I normally impression the lock but this time there was a code on it, I looked it up in my code program and it came up. It was a Slaymaker lock that use Ilco SY1 blank. I cut it with my computerized ITL
machine, and it worked perfectly. I put pressure on the handle again and I could feel the drive cam against the fence.
It dropped in at 93 against the other 3 wheels. For this manipulation, I did not use a wire like I usually do, I used a laser pointer. I taped it on the handle pointing down. I aimed it at a cardboard box on the floor and started to take readings.
I made a few marks with a thick Sharpy as I progressed through my manipulation. Normally I would use a super thin line, very precisely drawn to see more "details" but here it didn't matter that the lines were 1/8" thick, the laser red dot is about that size anyhow.
After tickling her dial and caressing her handle for a little while, she opened right up...

A member here, by the name of uturn, mention the laser pointer idea a while back on another post. I though it was a brilliant idea and I couldn't wait to get another open gate style lock to try it on.
It works great. No more taped wires coming loose, no more bending keys, no more wire vibrations to tame, no more vise grips to mar the handles...
...Just a few inches of electrical tape and it's installed...
I took care not to tape over the little ON button, so that I could press it only while taking readings.
It works so awesome that I'm never going back to wires.

http://s1155.photobucket.com/user/Altas ... TDL%20safe

M.

Thank you for sharing this manipulation. Ain't it funny what we learn when we pool our ideas?

Gordon

You've got that right Gordon. Even a veteran like me learns from all of you.
What an awesome community we have here.

Many of you use graphs to aid in manipulation. Myself, I was never taught to graph and never do but I can see the value of it.
Years ago, a safe cracker friend of mine showed me his graphs, they didn't make much sense to me since I was not familiar
with them but now, I understand them and I decided to copy (from memory) the graphs that he had showed me.
I though it would help some of you to make more sense of them. The design is simple and based on an actual wheel, instead of being linear, it's circular. I believe it will represent the wheels better as it will show the actual topography of the wheels being work on. The features will be exaggerated but of course that is what we want to clearly see the gates signatures.
Tell me what you think.



M.

Wow, that's a pretty cool idea actually! Never thought of that but it seems really logical. It seems like it'd really help visualizing.