Forgot how to dial the combination on that old safe? Think you got the right numbers but the handle is stuck? What safe should you buy? Ask your safe questions here!
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Just letting you know after sending emails to the provided diplomat costumer suport I have yet to hear back from them. I'm loosing hope as far as getting the original combination from them. I been trying some advanced techniques that seem would work like alienation but I'm a novice and these have yet to yield results. Any guidance is apreciated.
ALCHEM1ST wrote:Just letting you know after sending emails to the provided diplomat costumer suport I have yet to hear back from them. I'm loosing hope as far as getting the original combination from them. I been trying some advanced techniques that seem would work like alienation but I'm a novice and these have yet to yield results. Any guidance is apreciated.
Too bad they did not write back, check your spam catcher in case they replied and it ended up in there.
Do you mean wheel isolation when you say alienation?
You could just dial the safe every 5 increments for each combination you dial, and brute force the last week, so this would be 20 x 20 x 20 combinations in all, which is 8,000, but probability is that you will hit upon the combination in the 1st half of your attempts.
Based on some confirmations in the replies below from MartinHewitt and Billdeserthills, we need to change the instructions I provided earlier.
Your lock will have 3 combination wheels, and an additional wheel called a driver, which is how the rotation of the dial is transferred mechanically to the inside of the safe and in turn rotates the 3 combinations wheels.
This 3 wheels and driver concept is perfectly displayed in this video I posted earlier in the thread. You ask for guidance, and this video is probably going to be 90% of what you need to open that safe. I'll post it again so you don't have to hunt for it in the thread. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpTaf1JR4oc
Because this is not a high security safe, there's a fair amount of slop and loose tolerances.. If your real combination was 20-40-60-90, you could probably dial 18-43-57-92 and still open the safe. You can use this to your advantage because it reduces the number of possible combinations to 100 numbers per wheel, down to 20. For the sake of numbers that are easy to track, and because the gates in the wheels tend to be 5 digits wide, you can just dial every 5 numbers which reduces the combination space from 100x100x100 plus the driver wheel, down to 20x20x20 plus the driver wheel gate needing to be aligned. You said you remember the last number the dial was set to when they key worked. The will be the number the driver needs to be turned to in order to align it's gate with the fence trying to stick into the wheels. This means you still have to figure out wheel 1, wheel 2, and wheel 3.
If you start dialing combinations at 0 - 0 - 0 then 0 - 0 - 5, then 0 - 0 - 10, and so on until you get to 95 - 95 - 95 (plus the final turn of the driver to that last number (it does not count as the 4th number of the combination, but some folks tend to call it a 4th number) you will open the safe somewhere along the way.. It could open at 10 - 75 - 30, it might open at 90 - 15 - 55, but it's at least only 8,000 combinations to dial, versus a million which is what most 3 number combination safes with 100 number dials claim to be the number of possible combinations.
In order to expedite this dialing process so that it doesn't take you weeks to do it, you would start by turning the dial counter clockwise (CCW) and allow the dial to pass the 12 oclock mark on the dial ring 3 times, and stop at 0 on the 4th time around. What this just did is it picked up all the wheels and then parked wheel 1 at 0. This does not mean there is a gate in wheel 1 at 0, we are just setting up the wheels inside to test them out, and we are starting at 0 for wheel 1. Next change direction and turn the dial Clockwise (CW) 2 times past 0, and stop on 0 the 3rd time around. This just parked wheel 2 on 0. Next change direction again and dial Counter Clock Wise (CCW) 1 time past 0 and stop on 0 the 2nd time around. Congrats, you just parked wheel 3 on 0.
Now we test if this combination will open the safe. This means turning the key with one hand and turning the dial Clockwise (CW) all the way to that last number you remember, or better yet, all the way around until you reach 0.
If the safe does not open, then this means 0 - 0 - 0 is not the correct combination and we will increment to test another number.. without having to dial all of this from scratch, you can back dial Counter Clock Wise (CCW) again to 0 and then move the dial to 5. Now dial Clockwise again that last number your remember, or just dial all the way around to 5 while turning the key.. We just tested 0 - 0 - 5 Once you test all the way to 0 - 0 - 95, you can then dial 4 times Counter Clock Wise (CCW) stop at 0, then turn Clockwise (CW) 3 times to 5, and then turn (CCW) 2 times to 0 and this will start you testing 0 - 5 - 0 all the way to 0 - 5 - 95.
Hope that makes sense, and if I miswrote any steps, I hope other members will chime in with their way of dialing or any corrections that this needs.
Good luck, Squelchtone
My original instructions, updated instructions above this paragraph wrote:Here are general directions if your lock has only 3 wheel and no driver, the number of times around on each wheel will change if you have 3 wheels AND a driver wheel:
In theory, you would turn all wheels left 3 times around and stop at 0, then turn dial right 2 times around and stop at 95, then turn dial left again to 0 and try the big handle, turn the dial to 5 and try handle, turn it to 10 and try handle. This leaves wheel 1 parked at 0, wheel 2, parked at 95, and you can try out the 3rd wheel from 0 to 95 without having to do additional dialing. If it does not open, then dial all wheels left 3 times again and stop the 1st wheel at 0, then dial right and stop the 2nd wheel at 90. Now dial left and every 5 numbers (0,5,10,15,20,25,30,etc) try the handle, once you run all the wheel 2 and 3 combinations while wheel 1 is set to 0, if none of them open the safe, you'll have to dial left 3 times and stop the dial on 5, then repeat the steps above for every number on wheel 2 and wheel 3. Then do that for the other numbers on wheel 1 (10,15,20,25,30,etc) Might have it open in an evening or two once you get into a good groove with your dialing.
*EDIT* I just saw your prior reply and reddit post stating you know what the dial was set to when the key could open it.. that's actually useful.. what was the number? you can post it or if prefer not to, you can send me a Private Message (PM) on here.
The lock on keypicking and every other I have found had 3 wheels AND DRIVER. So it is 4, 3, 2 turns for the wheels. The gate of the driver is likely obvious when turning under tension.
MartinHewitt wrote:The lock on keypicking and every other I have found had 3 wheels AND DRIVER. So it is 4, 3, 2 turns for the wheels. The gate of the driver is likely obvious when turning under tension.
This is true-- when I have stocked & sold these Diplomat safes, they all had 3 wheels & a driver
MartinHewitt wrote:The lock on keypicking and every other I have found had 3 wheels AND DRIVER. So it is 4, 3, 2 turns for the wheels. The gate of the driver is likely obvious when turning under tension.
This is true-- when I have stocked & sold these Diplomat safes, they all had 3 wheels & a driver
Thank you both for confirming this, I will amend the instructions above.
Yes sorry I meant isolation. When holding the key the numbers I felt a gate at where 30 and 60 and 60 was the number I'm 90 % sure was set on the dial when the key was working. I will start your instructions for brute forcing it it will probably take me a few days as I mention I don't have a lot of spare time. I checked all my email folders including spam and junk. It was worth a try to go through them. As always thanks for all the help any additional info is welcomed.
ALCHEM1ST wrote:Yes sorry I meant isolation. When holding the key the numbers I felt a gate at where 30 and 60 and 60 was the number I'm 90 % sure was set on the dial when the key was working. I will start your instructions for brute forcing it it will probably take me a few days as I mention I don't have a lot of spare time. I checked all my email folders including spam and junk. It was worth a try to go through them. As always thanks for all the help any additional info is welcomed.
I fixed the instructions, please see above for newly updated ones!
Mokkmokk82 wrote:Hi.. My grandparents died several years ago, and my parents have had a safe that was left behind after they died. My husband and I got the safe yesterday, with a bet on that if we manage to open it, we can keep whats inside.
Er have tried Google and YouTube but havent found a good solution yet.
Have product number and Key number, code is fine missing.
This is an old safe and I imagine it is possible to open it without a locksmith or paying lots of money.
Since you physically have the safe try contacting the manufacturer provide them with the serial number and see if there is some way they can help you.
Hi guys just an update I got it open thank you for all your help sorry it tooke.so long it was probably a total of 10 hrs work about 5 doing it right and making actual progress thanks to yall. I was going through all possible combinations that included the two numbers I knew of 60 and 30 and this was my last set using 30 as the third digit and I noticed the key moving much more when 5 was the second number so I started using that as the second and it open. Thanks to you guys i can now use this safe I apreciate all the advice and information. Although it was repetitive I had fun doing it and will probably buy a safe I can practice something closer to manipulation.