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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I have an 1890ish Mosler with a Yale 041 series lock on the outside door but the inner door for which I do not have the combination, it has a Yale 025 1/2. My question is if all 025 1/2 were equipped with 4 wheels? Thanks in advance!
Thank you Martin Hewitt for the reply. I have searched for any information on these locks and the only thing I have found is a sales brochure from the late ‘20s that says 4 tumblers. Is there any chance that you know what the tolerance is for the numbers?
I live in a town with only two locksmiths, neither of which are interested in trying anything but brute force to open it. Since I own the safe and the house was obviously built around it, I have time on my side. I set out to build an Arduino based autodialer. Assuming that the inner box also had a three wheel tumbler set, it seemed completely doable. 4 tumblers, I’m not so sure and especially so if the tolerance is zero.
Any more photos or manuals with information on 025 1/2 locks that anyone has or knows of would be greatly appreciated.
Lets assume we use an autodialer and set it to check every 2 3/4 numbers. 36 numbers per wheel. 20% of the last wheel not usable due to mechanical limitations. That's 1.34 million combinations. Assuming we can check one every 5 seconds, than it is total nearly 80 days of constant dialling. Now 2 3/4 might be to optimistic for your lock. maybe one wheel has a gate, that is only 2 1/2 or 2 1/4 wide? Then it is still not open after 80 days. So testing every 2 numbers would be safer. That is then 5 million combinations or total 290 days of dialling. Modern locks are tested for 10000 openings. Older locks do use better materials, but will it keep up with that much dialling at high speed? If not then only drilling is left to open the safe. IMHO an autodialer is not useful for a 4-wheel lock.
Martin, I greatly appreciate that you checked that for me. I was hung-ho until I realized it was a 4 wheel lock. That exponential math sure can dash a guy’s hopes. I would have no issue with just letting it do it’s thing until it got it but that would assume that it wouldn’t glitch in the possible span of a year.
Most people are lazy and many combination numbers end in 0's or 5's, so you could set something up to dial only 0,10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90 on all four wheels, then if it doesn't open have your dialer dial all the numbers ending in 5 such as 5,15, 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85, 95, and if that doesn't open, do a combo of only dialing numbers ending in 0 or 5. 0,5,10,15,20,25.. 80,85,90,95.
MartinHewitt wrote: IMHO an autodialer is not useful for a 4-wheel lock.
I used at ITL-1000 safe dialer to open a 4 wheel Mosler with a 5-H lock from 1910. It took less than a week of 24/7 dialing.
A photo of the lock with handle in open position, and of the display on the dialer when it stopped dialing =)
Look what the actual wheels were set to, numbers ending in 0 and 5, and two of the numbers were made the same, making it in effect a 3 number combination, this also shows you how much slop is built in on some of these locks.
Here is as short video of that dialer opening a Yale 0700 3 wheel lock on my 1947 Protectall safe:
