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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Why they brought a scope I dunno.... They could have stuck their head thru that massive hole to see inside. Then they had to drill TWO holes... Door probably whistled when they swung it open from all of the holes...
FOUR HOURS?? They look like union guys working by the hour.. (No offense to our union friends)
I've seen the Macneale and Urban safe that had a lettered dial. Was popular in the northeast. But never one that had both letters and numbers without doing some more research.
OMGoodness! Do you think they showed enough to find the neighborhood, the house, AND the safe?!
For all the damage he did drilling that first hole, he might just as well have gone ahead and punched the bolt. What was that? A 1/2" hole for a 1/4" scope? I'm not a safe driller, but from what I've seen neither of those points were good choices to begin with. But, what do I know?
I'd love to get my hands on a MacNeale & Urban safe lock with the split driver. Looks interesting. I wonder how it affects manipulation.
I also wonder about that dial. Z would end up being 100, but A would have to be 0. Do the letters end at Y on that one, or is Z 100 and A 0? Would love to see the whole dial.
There are direct entry safes, where the first drill point would have made sense (if it were not that big). The second hole looks like it was for a lock with a lever like the modern ones. (Maybe not the best place, but doable.) Of course these two types can be easily discriminated.
From the depiction of the wheel I would say it had 26 letters all around. The door edges, handle, dial, bolt positions and the 26-letter lock would match a MacNeale & Urban safe.
MartinHewitt wrote: From the depiction of the wheel I would say it had 26 letters all around. The door edges, handle, dial, bolt positions and the 26-letter lock would match a MacNeale & Urban safe.
Yes, he should have known exactly where to drill. Not always being certain what lock is behind the door is one of the biggest reasons I would avoid performing destructive entry, but there's no mistaking that manufacturer.
Why do you think all 26 letters are on this dial? That would mean there would be both a "0" and a "100", which would be strange.
The letters and numbers are aligned, 4 per letter, not offset in vernier fashion. So, there can only be 25 letters for 0 to 99 (or 1 to 100). One letter has to be missing, or there have to be extra numbers. They should have shown less of the outside of the house and the people, and more of the safe and dial!
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That last video, MartinHewitt! Do you think he was wearing a mask when he did all that drilling? Sheesh! At least it was his own safe, and not a customer's.
Last edited by L4R3L2 on 5 Apr 2020 3:00, edited 2 times in total.
I think the usage of asbestos in safes started quite a while later. So the dust from drilling could not have been that bad.
Anyway, I think the most important sentence in this video is: "I don't know why that fence doesn't want to fall, but that might be what my problem was, because I did have the combination for this, but it's not working, evidently."
So just some knocking on the door would have opened this safe.
