Badly made safe

[prag]

In the week I had a frantic lady calling to say her safe won't open and she needs to her documents from it urgently

"No problem" ma'm was my answer, "may I come out to your place and sort out the safe"

"No, I can bring it to you."

Okaaaaay I thought and waited. Not long after she arrived with a brick safe that was so new the face of the lock still had it's original protective plastic covering. Don't ask me why she didn't take it to the person/company she bought it from but I think she needed the contents and will take the safe back later because she took the safe back with her.

This was the part that amazed me. The safe was digital safe with and emergency key override. Usually a tubular lock but this had a key way for a SILCA LF4 blank. A slight modification to the key and I thought I can impression it..

Can you believe the lock turned with a blank key. Slight pressure was used but I was blown over by this discovery. Once turned into the open position, the bolts would not move. The Cam from the lock had disengaged from the bolt mechanism. A little "potting" around and the safe was open. The battery had not cover, one of the batteries was lying in the safe.

I advised her to buy a new 7 Lever single brick safe{No batteries need } or a good quality digital safe and not these ones from big retail stores. I did not have the opportunity to photograph the safe, so sorry for no pix

[raimundo]

Interesting story, not clear why the blank would work as a key, were the tumblers all there?
there are more and more vids on you tube of people getting these cheap strongboxes open with just a slap on the top of the box. Some of the ones they pick are also apparently really easy, includeing some fitted with a four pin medeco. Not clear why medeco makes 3 and 4 pin locks with the side bar, other than to encourage pickers, whats the point.?

[Major Boothroyd]

Interesting story, not clear why the blank would work as a key, were the tumblers all there?
there are more and more vids on you tube of people getting these cheap strongboxes open with just a slap on the top of the box. Some of the ones they pick are also apparently really easy, includeing some fitted with a four pin medeco. Not clear why medeco makes 3 and 4 pin locks with the side bar, other than to encourage pickers, whats the point.?

Probably cause people keep buying them

[yoyoboy]

Interesting story, not clear why the blank would work as a key, were the tumblers all there?

My guess is that someone at the factory screwed up and put an 0-bitted cylinder in there. That's really scary.
Prag, you should go to the store where she bought it and see if any of their other safes open with blanks.

[weerwolf]

I have seen a lot of those small "safe's". Most of them can be picked in less than 1 minute. My record is about 15 seconds.
They are just plain rubbish. Don't even bother impressioning them. Just pick them.

Most of the people who have these safes , keep the keys inside. . They then forget the combination. Then they come to us. I pick it , and press the reset button. Then it works with the factory code again.

[n2oah]

That sounds like a pretty weird scenario. Bouncing the solenoid open is another pretty easy method to use on cheap electronic safes.

[prag]

Just saw the same safe for about U$200. But I suppose its the fancy digital keypad that impresses people. Suckers

By the way, the only modification I did to the blank was to file done the blank to make it thinner in order to fit the keyway. I checked the if it was thin enough and was stunned when it turn under a bit of pressure.

My guess is that it was just a cheap safe.

I am aware of the bouncing of the solenoid method but the bolting machism was also faulty.

The other surprising thing was that the safe I wanted to sell her was about U$72 and it was a seven lever safe.

Go figure

[spbfox]

Yes, the safe looks like crap. Unless it was not her safe and someone else had already done some work on it but could not finish it

[prag]

OOPsss. I made a mistake. My maths or arithmetic is bad. The safe she had was advertised for US$17. Labour to open the lock was about US$18.

Sorry, my bad

[kisskott]

Just last night my friend were braging about his christmas pressent, A new safe

It's a small digital home safe don't remember the brand but anayway, He told me that "now I can ceep my coin collection safe". I told him that you can open the "backup" lock with a bic pen, and then I opend it with a pen I found in his office.

sometimes I love tumblar locks

And belive me when I say that the look on his face was priceless



sorry for my english I'm from sweden

[fjardeson]

Sometime our local locksmith has those "hotel type" safes for sale. These aren't too bad - they use a 6 digit keypad with retry lock out, a dual-turn 8 lever "Italian style" key override, and a motorized bolt mechanism (no slapping or dropping here).

I have one bolted down that I use as a pistol safe. Cost about $140 and works great.

It never fails to amaze me some of the junk that is sold as security hardware in this country (USA).

[Cephalic]

It's funny though. I have one of those digital key override safes. I'll have to see if I can bang on it to open it. Fortunately, I only got it to keep my 5 year old from poking around and having a gun issue. My first comment when I opened it (to my parents that got it for me) was that I could pry it open with a cheap pry bar. We all laughed, agreed and noted that it should do fine against a 5 year old.

[Knowthebird]

Sometime our local locksmith has those "hotel type" safes for sale. These aren't too bad - they use a 6 digit keypad with retry lock out, a dual-turn 8 lever "Italian style" key override, and a motorized bolt mechanism (no slapping or dropping here).

I have one bolted down that I use as a pistol safe. Cost about $140 and works great.

It never fails to amaze me some of the junk that is sold as security hardware in this country (USA).

Don't want to get into the safe talking too much, but many of those safes are not very secure. There are methods or resetting them by taking advantage of the override keyway. I have not been able to do it myself, but i've seen it done in literally seconds.

[fjardeson]

Duly noted, I'll check mine for vulns in that area. Thanks!