Manipulating an Victor Safe

[Learn to Manipulate]

Hello and thanks for the help in advance. I will keep this post discreet to limit exposing of sensitive information but I need some help opening a victor safe. What I am most specifically trying to determine is what type of fence I have, friction, gravity etc. I can only sense the contact points when I have picked up all of the wheels and rotate in a clockwise (right) rotation... if I park the wheels and return to the contact area I can not sense anything. Any tips to why this would be? Is it possible I have a broken mechanism. Thanks

[Squelchtone]

Hello and thanks for the help in advance. I will keep this post discreet to limit exposing of sensitive information but I need some help opening a victor safe. What I am most specifically trying to determine is what type of fence I have, friction, gravity etc. I can only sense the contact points when I have picked up all of the wheels and rotate in a clockwise (right) rotation... if I park the wheels and return to the contact area I can not sense anything. Any tips to why this would be? Is it possible I have a broken mechanism. Thanks

The fastest and best way for us to give you any kind of useful reply is to post a photo of your exact safe, not one just like it but the exact safe. Make sure it has the wheels in the photo, and shows the front of the safe, the handle, and the dial. It will help to post a second photo showing a close up of the handle/lever and the dial numbers. Is there a lock manufacturer name on the dial cap? If you can measure the distance from center of handle to center of dial that will help further.

Upload your pics to http://tinypic.com/ and then Copy/Paste the photos here, use 800x600 resolution if you want to put inline JPGs using the [IMG] tags, and if the photos are hi-res please use the [URL] tags to wrap your address.com/photo.jpg

Thanks,
Squelchtone

PS. the OP and I have exchanged PMs and we will not be giving out any drill points or exact manipulation instructions, only dialing diagnostics and perhaps what kind of lock/fence is in that safe once I see the photos. As this public safe area is a new thing, we will grow with it as we figure out what it is and what should or should not be discussed here.

[Learn to Manipulate]

Thanks for the quick response. I am at work now when I get home I will take the requested pictures and upload them. I will not be able to show you the wheels as I have not yet seen them myself. I have a solid understanding of the various manipulation techniques and do not need guidance there, but my fence is throwing me off and I fear mechanical malfunction or a non-standard fence. Thanks again for the help I will upload my pics tonight.

[Squelchtone]

Thanks for the quick response. I am at work now when I get home I will take the requested pictures and upload them. I will not be able to show you the wheels as I have not yet seen them myself. I have a solid understanding of the various manipulation techniques and do not need guidance there, but my fence is throwing me off and I fear mechanical malfunction or a non-standard fence. Thanks again for the help I will upload my pics tonight.

Oops, I meant the wheels the safe is rolling around on, not the wheelpack inside the door lock. The wheels, shape of the door (square or rounded), location of lock dial, location and shape of handle, the banding around the safe, all of those physical attributes help us pin point when your safe was made and what exact style of mechanism and brand of lock was typically used for that safe model. Then we can figure out 3 or 4 wheels, direct entry, gravity, friction, etc.

See ya on here tonight,
Squelchtone

[Learn to Manipulate]

Okay... There may be wheels on the safe, but as you are about to see this safe is built into the back wall of my closet so they are not visible. Here are some pics of the safe.
Note: This is a 60 digit dial.

[Squelchtone]

She's a beaut Clark!

I'll dig up some info tonight and let you know what you're up against.

Squelchtone

[Learn to Manipulate]

Yeah.... its beautiful with hand painting. That is why I do NOT want to drill or force entry into this safe. Thank you for the help.

[Squelchtone]

Can you try the things on this page and let us know if you can figure out if you have 2 wheels and a driver or 3 wheels and a driver?

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Locksmithing ... Safe-3.htm

Thank you,
Squelchtone

PS. Also look in and around your closet shelves and doors, people are lazy and forgetful and may have scribbled the combination numbers on the wood work in pencil, etched using a pocket knife, etc.

[Learn to Manipulate]

It is 3 wheels and a driver... I pick up what feels like 4 wheels all together. And I have spent a while looking around the closet and could find nothing. I imagine the closet has been painted since it was last opened. Also there are no etchings in the wood. I looked everywhere.

[Squelchtone]

It is 3 wheels and a driver... I pick up what feels like 4 wheels all together. And I have spent a while looking around the closet and could find nothing. I imagine the closet has been painted since it was last opened. Also there are no etchings in the wood. I looked everywhere.

The good part about your 60 number dial is that it dramatically reduces the numberspace in an exhaustive brute force search. further more, the gates on the wheels occupy 1/20 wheel's diameter, so your gates are 3 numbers wide. This means that you dial 25 - 10 - 32 or 27 - 8 - 30 or 24 - 11 - 33 and the gates are wide enough so all of those variations (if they were the true combination, not saying yours is that combo) would have an equal chance of letting the fence drop in. Your fence is a gravity fence by the way.

The last number should be 54, that's the drop in point, and your dialing order should be

Left 4 times to 1st number
Right 3 times to 2nd number
Left 2 times to 3rd number
Right 1 time around to 54 then, fence drops in, and keep turning right/clockwise to retract bolts.

I just confirmed what I wrote when I found the same written here: http://www.clearstar.com/public/messages/15896.htm

Squelchtone

[Learn to Manipulate]

Thank you very much.... You have confirmed a number of my assumptions. At this point I am still curious why I can only feel my contact area when I have picked up all of my wheels. If I park them away from the contact area and come back I sense nothing (I must have a number of wheels picked up and traveling clockwise). This doesn't seem like normal operation. Perhaps I am sensing a false gate? Maybe my fence is riding on the wheels themselves and I am sensing a wheel gate. I am not sure. This whole process fascinates me and more than just opening the safe I want to learn how this works in its various variations. Its exciting stuff.

BTW. don't know if you are a cigar smoker squelchtone... but I am a marketing manager for an online cigar retailer. I can send you a couple of cigars for all of your help.

[Squelchtone]

Thank you very much.... You have confirmed a number of my assumptions. At this point I am still curious why I can only feel my contact area when I have picked up all of my wheels. If I park them away from the contact area and come back I sense nothing (I must have a number of wheels picked up and traveling clockwise). This doesn't seem like normal operation. Perhaps I am sensing a false gate? Maybe my fence is riding on the wheels themselves and I am sensing a wheel gate. I am not sure. This whole process fascinates me and more than just opening the safe I want to learn how this works in its various variations. Its exciting stuff.

BTW. don't know if you are a cigar smoker squelchtone... but I am a marketing manager for an online cigar retailer. I can send you a couple of cigars for all of your help.

Funny enough, I am, and my buddy is involved with CRA here in Massachusetts.

As to manipulation, I think you will find that any instructions out there for let's say an S&G 6730 such as Matt Blaze's paper Safecracking for the Computer Scientist, may not apply entirely to the way antique safes are open, I'd like to hear the opinion of some of our veteran lock technicians here who would like to comment on what I just said.

In a nutshell, and without going into too many details that we normally only talk about in the Advanced area, I would view your safe wheels as 20 numbers only which is 20x20x20 or 8,000 combinations. This goes back to the whole thing about 1/20 of your wheels is a gate, so you just have to mentally remove some of the notches on your 60 number dial and only try every 3 numbers while dialing test combinations. Maybe we should call this dialing tolerance or slop.

Since combinations such as 1 1 1 and 40 40 40 and similar things can probably be discounted you can remove 60 combinations right there, down to 7,940 people tend to like birthdays and years for combinations so I always try 17, 18 or 19 as one of the numbers, and then perhaps a month which will be 1 through 12, and famous years like 1620, 1804, 1776 (cant be because dial only goes to 60), 1860, 1945 or you can dial try out combinations, such as 10-20-30, 20-40-60, 20-60-40 25-50-25, 50-25-50

Dialing order is half the battle, we believe we at least know that, so now just start plugging numbers in.

Here's a photo of what I think you have inside your door:


Squelchtone

[Learn to Manipulate]

Yes... This picture is not at all how I was envisioning the lever and fence. From this picture it appears that the fence possibly comes to the bottom of the lever?? very interesting if that is the case. I have acquired and read the document you mention as well as two other more in depth documents I wont mention. One in particular covers manipulation with regards to 3 different styles of fences / levers. I think breaking the dial into larger parts because of the size of the gate would make trial and error more of a manageable task. Although admittedly I would still like to learn some advanced techniques... I guess I will have to go to Walmart and buy a more conventional safe to practice on. Once I get the safe open I will post plenty of pics for our learning pleasure.

If you want to private message me your address I will send a few cigars your way. Check out www.stogieboys.com and tell me if you see anything you like. Thanks

[Squelchtone]

Yes... This picture is not at all how I was envisioning the lever and fence. From this picture it appears that the fence possibly comes to the bottom of the lever?? very interesting if that is the case. I have acquired and read the document you mention as well as two other more in depth documents I wont mention. One in particular covers manipulation with regards to 3 different styles of fences / levers. I think breaking the dial into larger parts because of the size of the gate would make trial and error more of a manageable task. Although admittedly I would still like to learn some advanced techniques... I guess I will have to go to Walmart and buy a more conventional safe to practice on. Once I get the safe open I will post plenty of pics for our learning pleasure.

If you want to private message me your address I will send a few cigars your way. Check out http://www.stogieboys.com and tell me if you see anything you like. Thanks

Dont go to Walmart, Sentry safe is not a real safe. best bet is to go on ebay and get a Sargent Greenleaf 6730 lock and mount it in a piece of wood or plexiglass and practice that way, but it still wont be what you have inside your Victor.

As best as I can understand it the fence sits on top of the wheels dragging along all the time, and it is part of the lever, which then joins the boltwork at that pivot. Can anyone else tell if the fence does indeed ride the wheelpack or does the front mounted driver keep the fence a tiny distance above the wheels unless over the drop in area?

I'll PM you later about the cigars.

Thanks!
Squelchtone

[dw0r]

In my victor safe the fence does not touch the wheel pack unless you're at the drop in spot on the driver.
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