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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Anyone familiar with Murphy safes? I have 2 of them and they both open RLR and LRL. (With different combos) Wondering if they cut 6 slots (2 on each wheel)? I could probably find out but I’d have to disassemble the door again and it’s Just too much work! The door cases are pressed on before secured with screws. Would appreciate any info.
The wheels do probably have fixed pins instead of movable flies. This has the effect, that the next wheel is moved before a full turn. It is like when you have a bottle on the table and push another bottle from the left to where the fist bottle stands vs. push another bottle from the right. The second bottle has the same position, but the first one has a totally different position. With a Murphy safe the last number should not change (like with the second bottle), but the second and even more the first number.
If the driver is not part of the combination, than the first number already shifts. I use numbers less than 0 to indicate a turn less than a full turn and + if it is more than a full turn (with movable flies). In your case it is -11/-5/-5. -5 per wheel us not unusual for a fixed fly. But with a true 3 wheel lock with pins there should be also a difference between second and third number (if they are real two numbers). Btw. how many turns do you do when dialling the combo?
You probably know this but this combination lock does not have gates or a bar. It has slots cut into the inside of the wheels. After slots are lined up, pull out on combination dial and turn bolt wheel counter clockwise. This is why I suspected it would work in both directions.
Number of turns: 432 both ways. The number dial is the driver from the top.
As MartinHewitt said in his initial reply to you, your wheels have fixed pins, and the pins are thick enough that depending which way you dial, the gate will align under a different number due to the thickness of the pins (they're technically called fixed flies) Modern safe locks (and a lot of antique ones as well, since they knew of this issue a long time ago) correct this interesting phenomenon you are seeing by having movable flies which make it so the combination can often be dialed LRL or RLR to almost the same numbers, although in practice a couple digits off here and there.
Here is a nice photo of an old Victor Safe lock showing a pin/fly in one of the possible positions around the wheel which would set it to a particular combination on the dial. photo credit: Oldfast on Keypicking forum, post: https://keypicking.com/viewtopic.php?f=100&t=11840
You can see there are not 99 holes around the wheel as in one for each number on the dial, there are only 10 holes, so if you dial that wheel from the Left you will see one number one the dial when the lock opens, and if you dial it from the Right you will hit the pin at another number on the dial because the pin occupies a significant amount of space on the wheels diameter.
Here is a photo of a modern wheel on a Sargent & Greenleaf safe lock showing a movable fly (the pen is pointing to it) which moves out of the way so that no matter from which direction you dial, the safe lock gate aligns under the same number, you can see the stops on each side of the fly, which define it's travel area. photo credit: GWiens2001 on this forum, post: viewtopic.php?f=36&t=62460
What really drives which way a safe is dialed is the final turn during which the drive wheel and fence or lever nose interact with each other in order to retract the lock bolt. Some bolts retract with a final turn to the Left and some retract with a final turn to the Right, so in order to make the dialing sequence smooth and intuitive, you dial the other wheels to match the direction of the final turn. If the final turn is Left, then you would dial your combination Right, Left, Right, and final turn Left. Likewise if the final turn to retract the bolt is Right, you would dial the combination Left Right Left, and then that final turn to the Right. It would be awkward to dial RLR and then another R to retract the bolt.
I suddenly feel like I wrote something like this recently in response to another post here. Also, please note that the Murphy safe mechanism is what I would call an odd duck even for it's era, it is a unique mechanism that should not be compared in operation to other safes of it's day, and when dialing will have it's own unique quirks. If I had to compare it to another similar mechanism it's more like a direct entry fence, rather than a fence mounted to a lever arm, but like I said, it's it's own interesting design, especially with having to pull the knob out in order to retract bolt by turning the other dial.
Perhaps this video will offer some additional insight to your question.
