1907 Mosler safe Need help

[celticcerberus]

Hello, this is my first time posting on this forum. I have just acquired an old Mosler safe from a storage unit and do not have the combination. I have been researching the safes and have a rough understanding of how to manually manipulate a safe. I will try to attach photos so that it can be examined. Rotating the dial it feels like there are 4 wheels, I am basing this off of rotating the dial AWL. One thing that is weird to me is that when picking up wheels rotating the dial it becomes more difficult to turn. I am having a hard time finding the right and left contact points and am hoping someone can help me figure it out what specific dial is in my safe and how to best approach finding the combination. I think it is 1907 based off the serial on the handle 200660. The dimensions of the safe are 38Wx30Dx64"

[Squelchtone]

Oh my nemesis.. Mosler 5-H Lock

you are correct, it is a 4 wheel lock. Mine was also hard to turn after I picked up all 4 wheels.

After failing to graph it and manipulate it open, I ended up using an auto dialer to open the one I had..


If you knew the the combination, and let's say it was set to 20-40-60-80, then this is how you would dial it open:

Dial Left past 20 four times, stop on 20 the fifth time around

Dial Right past 40 three times, stop on 40 the fourth time around

Dial Left past 60 two times, stop on 60 the third time around

Dial Right past 80 one time, stop on 80 the second time around

Dial Left until the dial stops at 16, the dial will not be able to turn any further. Turn the handle to the Left to retract the door bolts.


Here are a few photos of the one I opened:



auto dialer attached to the door with magnets


look how thick those doors are!


inside of door, showing the stops around the door edge, and the cover plate , round chrome thing is the wheel pack attached to the door.


inside door cover removed to show the lock body and brass lock bolt facing up, combination wheels removed already



The combination wheels removed from the door, notice all the gates lined up as they needed to be in order to open the lock:


here are the combination wheels removed from the crub and placed next to each other.


This safe lock is pretty forgiving and in my experience human beings are super lazy and predictable at setting combinations, so dialing combinations that only end in 0's or 5's is your fastest way at opening it. No need to try every number such as 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, jut try 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55 and so on for each wheel. Doing this reduces the number space dramatically down to only 160,000 possible combinations. down from 100,000,000 (100 million) Now could the combination be set by someone to something like 17-32-66-91 ? yes, sure, but people tend to go with easier to remember. I also think that if that was the combination, but you dialed 15-30-65-90, the lock would be forgiving enough to still open for you.

Having said that, if you've never worked on safes before, and this is your first time understanding how a safe lock works and dials open, this is not going to be easy. Can it be done, sure. but we're talking weeks or months of learning and work.. not dialing for 5 minutes and listening for clicks like they do it in old movies.

You *could* get lucky and have the safe be set to some super easy combination such as 50-50-50-50 or 25-50-25-50 or 10-20-30-40, which is certainly worth taking an hour to dial all the easy stuff to get it out of the way.

There will only be 1 contact point on this lock because it is a friction fence lock. Graphing is possible.

So what do you say? you up for the challenge?

Squelchtone

[celticcerberus]

Thank you very much for the reply, this helps tremendously. I believe I can feel the one contact point at 92. I was thrown off by it not having a second point. I think going forward I am going to try and graph for a week or so before moving on. The information about the tolerances was very helpful and If I get stuck I will resort to manually dialing combos by 5's. I will post any updates on my progress when I make it. BTW that is a very cool safe you have and I am looking forward to getting mine open to see what art or other interesting things are inside. Moving the safe was very interesting btw, I think I underestimated the weight (only figure on it being around 2000 pounds). I had to use heavy duty ratchet straps 4,000 lbs, and a 2 ton come along to get it loaded into a trailer.

[Squelchtone]

92 seems a bit off for a contact point on this model..

Try this:
Step 1. Dial all wheels Right at least 5 times all the way around and stop on 20.

Step 2. Dial Left to 90, now in one smooth motion, keep dialong Left until you get to 10. You should feel something around 0, 5, or 7. Like a bit of a speed bump that you have to turn a bit harder to get past.

If you dont feel such a thing in those spots its ok, go back to Step 1 and Dial all wheels Right and stop on 50 this time, then try Step 2.

And yes that safe is a chore to move. You may get lucky and have the version that has another safe inside.

Squelchtone

[celticcerberus]

Thanks for the advice, I will try that and see what I come up with. I was looking more at how a friction fense operates and I was starting to doubt my initial assessment, thanks for confirming and for the quick reply.

Update: I did tried AWR and am getting contact at 8

[00247]

Here is one of my Mosler 5H in action. Of course the wheel pack has been removed for visual access.

[celticcerberus]

Thank you for the video, it helps me get a better understanding of how the mechanism works. One question I have is about graphing out results of right contact point. Am I looking for a series of lower number contacts, such as a dip from 8 to 7 3/4 and then back to 8?

[Squelchtone]

Thanks for the advice, I will try that and see what I come up with. I was looking more at how a friction fense operates and I was starting to doubt my initial assessment, thanks for confirming and for the quick reply.

Update: I did tried AWR and am getting contact at 8

ok, so mine happened to be around 7, yours is around 8, perfect.

I have to take care of something and will be back tomorrow, but if you are near the safe you can do this for an hour:

get a piece of graph paper, and mark it going backwards from 5,0,95,90,85,80... 15.. and finally 10. These will be all the places we check.

5
0
95
90
85
80
75
70
65
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10

now make some marks going left and right for 6.0,6.5,7.0,7.5, 8.0, 8.5, 9.0, 9.5

8 is going to be your contact point, and most of the time you'll probably feel something right at 8. if you are testing a particular number around the dial and you go back to the contact point and you feel that spot has shifted and you feel it at like 8.2 or 8.7 or even more at like 6.0 or 7.0 on the dial, then you mark a dot where you feel it..

To start graphing do this:
Step A. Dial All Wheels Right (AWR) 5 times around and stop on 5.

Step B. turn the dial Left towards 10 at slow, medium, and fast speeds back and fourth (Left and Right) between 5 and 10 a few times, and when you find the contact point (CP) mark it on the graph.

Step C. turn the dial Right to the next number we want to test and graph, which is 0, next time it will be 95, then 90, and until you graph the entire dial back down to 10. Go back to Step B and take a reading to see how close or far from 8 you are feeling something interesting and graph it.



Show us your graph when done. If you have the afternoon free, it's even better to graph every single number around the dial, so start at 5, then do 4,3,2,1,0,99,98,97... all the way to 9. This will give you a much more detailed graph in case there is a gate hiding at like 13, but you only tested 10 and 15.

Hope that makes some sense, I know it's hard to read this versus seeing a video, so thank you to 00247 for sharing that clip!

I'm sure other safe manipulation folks will chime in and correct anything I said wrong and offer their own good advice on graphing this lock.

Good luck, I'll be back tomorrow.
Squelchtone

[Squelchtone]

You can read this document as well which is more for modern locks but a lot of concepts transfer over to all safe locks, and it includes some graph paper examples at the end that you can use to see if you're doing it right..

https://content.instructables.com/ORIG/ ... RIBMC5.pdf

[celticcerberus]

I am posting the graph that I made. I only have the right contact points down, if I understand right the left contact cannot be measured. I think the first number is 84 on the 3rd wheel. My reasoning for this is that when I tested 84 for each wheel the right contact was slightly further than it was for the other wheels. I think that means that when wheel 3 not 84 the nose is not able to get as far into the contact area.



[EDIT: I rotated the image for you..-Squelchtone]

[celticcerberus]

I graphed the first number again and came up with a similar result. I was feeling a contact point around zero however, is that normal as long as it is still in contact area from turning right?

[Squelchtone]

Just to confirm, that you are marking your graph paper from right to left as you turn All Wheels Right, then dial Left to test between 0 and 10, then turn Right to shift all the wheels a little as you advance downwards from 5 to 0 to 95 all the way to 15 to 10, correct?

It sure looks like you might have something cooking at 84..

On this lock model the drive wheel gate starts to align with the fence right at 0 so I'm not surprised you are getting some readings there as well. I'll post photos tomorrow of what I mean by that gate and the fence at 0.

I'll wait for someone else to chime in on your high low tests to determine which wheel you think 84 is on..

[celticcerberus]

Yes I am moving all wheels right to each test number and then dialing left to leave the wheels at each number and feel for the contact point between 0 and 10. I started my graph at 20 and worked down and around the dial 15, 10, 5, 0, 95 ... I will try and use the 84 I found on wheel 2 to see if I can find another gate on one of the other wheels today. next graph will be wheels 1,2 & 4 R and wheel 3L 84.

[celticcerberus]

Update I think I have figured out the second number. I have found W4 to be R 29, and wheel 3 to be 84L. I am going to try and get the other two today. If all goes well I will send pictures of the inside of the safe tonight, if not I will post my 2nd and 3rd number graphs.

[celticcerberus]

Good news I GOT IT OPEN!!! will send pictures momentarily