It's been a while...
I've been out of town for nearly a month, traveling the Province, inspecting ATM's.
One of the local Bank had an incident where two ATM's were broken into. The thieves made out with $400,000.00
It turned out that the screws holding the boltwork had been weakened, almost cut through with a hack saw...
This would have had to happen while the Bank was still under construction and before the locks were installed...
Possibly weakened by a construction worker who had access. The ATM's were loaded the night before the Grand Opening and were also broken into that night. Someone knew what they were doing. The Bank main door had had the glass removed, the alarm was disabled, and video recordings destroyed. The ATM room door was busted and the ATM's opened with a crow bar...
The Bank HQ immediately requested that all the ATM's be inspected to see if this had been done to any other...
I didn't find any.
---Just the other day, I received a call from a gentleman. He was locked out of his gun safe. He told me that he had ordered an electronic lock to replace the mechanical one that his safe came with. He thought that the dialing procedure was a PITA and he never really got the hang of it. Assuming that replacing the lock would be easy, after all he is a farmer and he is definitely handy, he fixes his tractors and farming implements. he'd try to do it himself. He was telling me on the phone what he had done and the symptoms of what was now happening and asked for help.
It was a John Deere gun safe, made by Liberty Safe Co. He is a John Deere fan, from his tractors to his bar stools and drinking glasses, all John Deere. The safe was in his shop, heated, bright lights, filled with all the tools and machines and toys one man could need, and then some, I was a little jealous...
Seeing all the mechanical lock parts he had left on his work bench, it became apparent that he omitted to install ONE part...
That ONE part that holds the re-locker back. It prevents it from firing during normal use...
...DAMN! The one thing I dread the most, a fired re-locker. Having worked on these safes before, I had a pretty good idea of where the re-locker was but also knowing that the lock was protected by 3 layers of 1/8" hard plate, I wasn't just gonna poke holes in the door to find it.
So, I called Liberty Safe Co. After checking my credentials, they were very co-operative and gave me the drill point. Knowing that I was Canadian, they even gave the metric measurements. I laughed and asked for them in inches.
So I started to drill, the outer shell was easy, the fire retardant was easy, in fact, it is a couple sheets of dry wall, the inner shell was easy, but then, the bit hit something hard and refused to penetrate further. I had hit the hard plate. Now it was time to set up my rig. A 5.5 amp 1/2" selectable hammer drill, a range of carbide tipped drill bits and a tie-down strap.
I fitted the drill with a carbide bit, selected the drill function, not the hammer, wrap the strap around the safe and the
drill, squeezed and locked the trigger and tightened the strap. This still takes a lot of muscle to maintain the drill perpendicular the the door. With that much pressure from the strap, the bit will flex, or break or drill at an angle if the drill is not held strait.
After 2 hours, the hammer function of the drill engaged itself. There was no way I could turn it off, I think something broke or melted in there but the drill kept going and so did I. It is not uncommon for me to abuse a drill like that, it takes what it takes to go through hard plate and I don't care if the drill burns out. I don't care if they never last more than a year...
2 and a half hours into it, it started to smell funny, a very characteristic odor that I know so well, an overheated electrical smell. I stopped the drill and it was smoking. I took a break to loosen my muscle and let the drill cool but upon my return, the drill would not work, it was dead. I was an hour out of town and drill less. The client had just witness how severely I had abused that drill, so he didn't offer me to use his. I phoned a co-worker at the shop, and he met half way. He brought me a 9 amp high torque drill. It weighed a ton but with my rig, it doesn't matter. I continued drilling and about 10 minutes later, the bit broke through. I peeked inside and I could see the re-locker. With a sharp slotted screwdriver, I pried the re-locker out of the way. I had to take a few "bites" at it so I had to make sure to bind it with the handle to make sure it would not drop again between "bites". I dropped it a couple times, but on my third attempt, the handle turned.
YES! And I pulled the door opened.
This is the moment where I get that "high", and the adrenaline rushes...The moment when I get that sh*t eating grin on my face...That's the moment that makes my whole safe cracking career so awesome...
I repaired the hole, re-installed everything properly, including the re-locker holder and charge the gentleman $565.00
He was happy to have his safe working again, laughed about having "learned a lesson" and handed me his company credit card.
I was just about to drive off when he stopped me to ask if I wanted this. He was showing me the old lock...
I took it.
http://s1155.photobucket.com/user/Altashot/story/76649M.