Antique Herring Floyd Safe

[djed]

Actually, I could have paid to get it home but didn't want to. The bottom was rusted out and it was surprisingly heavy for its size. It bent two dollies. I did get the door and the exterior hardware which weighed about 250lbs

[QcLocksmith]

Nice jeweller safe! Yeah those are heavy, how much it would have cost to make it transported to your home? what the distance?

[djed]

About $300 to transport about 10 miles/20 minutes.

I'd need more than a transport since this one has no wheels.

[Ralph_Goodman]

Beautiful interior of that safe door. Great looking safe.

Do you have any plans to spruce up the exterior or even the inside? I would love to see what you end up doing with it.

Are you getting into manipulation? What are your plans with the safe in general?

[djed]

Ok - I got the safe home but it is so heavy it is completely unmanageable - even on my pallet jack. I estimated the safe weight at 1,150 after doing some calculations but I'm starting to wonder if I messed up the math.

Here are the pics. As you can see, some jacka$$ gangbanger tagged the safe last week while it sat on the sidewalk.







Pulled the muscle in my forearm getting the thing up my sloped driveway. I hope I can work this week. Hats off to you safe guys.

[djed]

Once I get the graffiti off, should I leave this as is or should I strip the old paint and repaint it? Most of the existing paint is chipping but i think it's still original at this point. If repainted, any suggestions on color?

Do you guys think this came out of the inside of a larger safe or was this a standalone? Is it a jewelers safe, a money chest, or ??? Why doesn't it have wheels? Who is "Floyd" (I've heard of Herring). The last patent date on the tag is 1872 so is it safe to assume this was manufactured some time thereafter? ... any idea on when?

Thanks for the help with any of the above questions.

Found this, "Safes manufactured at the New York plant were labeled as Herring-Farrel."

[femurat]

Looks like an oven to me! Paint some pizza on the sides

If it was my safe I'd remove the old paint and redo it completely. I'd try to find old pictures of said safe and match the old color and design.

Sorry to hear about your arm, hope you get better soon.

Cheers

[djed]

It was just explained to me that Herring & Floyd was the company that made the Franklenite high manganese iron plates for the Herring & Farrel safe company (which manufactured this safe).

[Ralph_Goodman]

I can't believe that someone did that to the safe. Such an odd crime.

The door was already off, correct? At least you saved that from some abuse.

Also, tagging the inside of the safe? That is just overkill...

And you pulled something moving it. How much do you still have to do in terms of placement and such? You are probably going to clean it up before you move it to its final location, correct?

[djed]

Hi Ralph,

Thankfully the spray paint has been coming off easily with GoofOff.

As of this time, I have only had the energy to get the safe up my driveway behind my locked gate (not like someone would walk away with it). As with all my other safes, I'm trying to learn as much as possible about the safe before doing anything with it. I'd love to get this into my office but I am struggling at figuring out how I'll get it up the two steps into my office.

Yea I hope to clean it up first but how much I'm not sure. I would really like other members' thoughts on how to go with this one. Based on the screws on the inside, I'm assuming at least some of the steel plates can be decronstructed.

As you noted, the door was removed so it avoided being tampered with.

[djed]

Starting to deconstruct the Herring Farrel (formerly called Herring Floyd):




Surprisingly poor quality (broken screws, misaligned plates, excessive use of filler (did they have filler in 1880s), use of small pieces instead of larger plates).

Maybe if I take this thing apart, I'll be able to move it and then reassemble it in my office?

[djed]

A couple of observations. 1 the lead based paint is really thick.



They used a lot of lead (instead of body filler).



The quality of the armor plate seems poor (bonded):




I can't get some of the armor plate to break loose since it seems like it's bonded with resin. Does that seem right? Will a torch get it out?

[djed]

More pictures:





Not sure what the GLE stamp stands for (sorry - you need to rotate it)

[MartinHewitt]

Thanks for sharing. I have never seen so many levers on a safe that small.

[djed]

Sandblasted the bottom. Wish I had a "before" picture as it was fairly rusty. Not sure what the three ( 3/8-16 ) threaded holes are in the front of the bottom but I'm guessing they were there in case the box was fit into a larger safe. I'm trying to powder coat the bottom but i don't think the safe is getting hot enough. By the way, the round mound of stuff sticking out in the upper left of the picture is a form of really hard steel. It burned through three cut off wheels before I could grind it down.