How to open a Mosler safe with combination? (2023 Update)

Thanks. I will definitely consider it.

I am also thinking, what should I do with this safe, in the sense of bolting it down. How is that properly done. It weighs only about 600 lbs and is in a place with pallet jacks and forklifts. Someone could just forklift it out of there.

Just to be clear, I am not anticipating storing any high value stuff in there, but I like to do things the right way, so I want to know how are safes properly secured.

Now, regarding key: the safe has a key hole in the lock. I do not have that key, and the safe seems to open and close without the need for any key. So, what is the purpose of that key? For changing combination? Is that what you were referring to?

Thanks

i

The key is to change the combination, and depending on the model it can be set up to open the safe as well.

As to securing it. Figure out where you want it. Make a template of the hole pattern in the base. then drill holes and use anchors to secure it to the floor.

If you were doing new construction you would do a bit more, like install hardened J bolts in the concrete, install ceramic/steel sleeves over them. Bolt the safe down and then tack the nuts in place. Then float concrete in around the base as well. Some do even more like adding plates below the safe and walling it in with steel/ceramic/steel composite plates.

When anchoring things to concrete, think Hilti. The wedge type anchors are good as are the threaded insert type, you can't remove either type, but you can fill them in or grind them flush if you remove the safe later. FYI after the Boston tunnel started dropping ceiling slabs and killing people, they called in Hilti to secure the ceiling panels properly.

It's very wise to get some training first. It's far too easy to mess things up, and lock yourself out.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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It isn't that hard to change those IF you needed to (I would since the original owner knows the current combination) You need the correct change key and the correct directions. Or just pay a smith to change it.

Steve W.

I saw that movie, ages ago. It was a real blast.

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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A movie classic IMO although I'm sure redneck america will object to Jeff Bridges' short lived appearance in tights.

I'm sending this reply just to rec.crafts.metalworking.

Well ... the first thing is that the first entry should be "turn past 63 at least four times and stop on 63", not just "start at 63" which is what this looks like to me.

Once that is dialed in, you have to turn the handle located to the left of it, probably to the right.

Hopefully, it is currently locked open, so you can't accidentally close the door and wind up with it locked.

But with it open, it should be possible to get to the back of the lock and reset the combination. I don't know about one of that age, but typcially the Mosler ones I re-set at work had multiple rings and hubs in a particular order in which you set the ring to line up the number you wanted with an index on the hub prior to reassembling it. The rings and hubs were plastic on those I worked on, while they may be something like pot metal with one this vintage.

BTW It looks as though it once had file cabinet drawers in the compartments -- I can still see the guides, and I see that the door slides back into a compartment to the right of the file cabinet section.

I hope that this does it.

Do you have the key for the handle? If not, and it is unlocked, you should be fine, but someone might pick it closed. :-) A locksmith could make a new key for it -- and change the keying in the process, so someone else could not get the number off the lock to get one made. :-)

Good Luck, DoN.

That key keeps you from turning the handle to open it even if you have the combination. It is really not as secure as the combination, fairly easy to pick, but it was a belt and suspenders setup. Perhaps person "N" had the key and person "P" had the combination, so both had to be present -- unless the handle was kept unlocked, as was fairly common, and is the status here. You need the key to lock it as well as to unlock it.

Enjoy, DoN.

The note might be a pig Latin note of sorts - written in reverse to fake out the bad guys but easy for the rightest!

Mart> >>> I purchased this Mosler safe. As you can see, it is open and empty, so

I will use this safe mostly for storing new carbide cutters, stuff that is worth a pretty penny. Thanks for explaining the purpose of the key. I think that I do not need it for what I do. I practiced throughout the day today and I think that I am getting a grip on it.

Despite the flimsy outer shell, this is a very secure Class C safe with a very strong inner shell.

``C-Rating Steel construction with doors at least one inch thick and walls at least half an inch thick.''

i

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O.K. The main reason to have a key (or to remove the core of the lock) is so someone does not pick the lock closed on you.

Probably made mostly for protecting documents from fire. (Especially given the provisions for file cabinet drawers inside.)

Later safes were rated to protect documents in a fire for a certain time, to protect contents from "access by manipulation of the lock" a much shorter time, and from "forcible entry" where it is very obvious that someone has broken in) for zero man minutes. This was the kind of rating on government security file cabinets. Against forcible entry, the main purpose that the security file cabinet serves is making it very quickly obvious when something has been stolen.

The thickness of the walls is mostly asbestos in concrete, I believe. The outer skin of metal, and possibly a similar inner skin is mostly to keep the concrete/asbestos together.

However, for your purpose, it should be good enough, except that it will make it *look* like you have something much more valuable in there, and encourage someone to bring along a safecracker friend. There is something to be said for making things not look too seriously protected. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

sage

The change key hole is inside the safe on the inner surface of the lock case... That is what you need if you want to change the combination of the lock...

If you are referring to a keyhole in the dial, that is to lock the dial so that without the key it won't be engaged to spindle to prevent someone from casually playing around with it... It doesn't and won't stop someone who knows what they are doing as far as safe cracking...

~~ Evan

The key hole that I was referring to, is not in the dial, it is in the handle that opens the lock once the dial is correctly dialed.

I thought that there are very few truly professional criminal safecrackers left nowadays, unlike, say, in 1920's or some such. The prosession sort of died out, kind like pike pickpockets are dying out due to "cashless economy".

Is that right or wrong?

i

Won't that first burglar be surprised?

-- I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty. -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Count Diodati, 1807

Such a keyhole in the handle is a secondary means of security when the main lock is secured, it also needs to be open for the safe to open... It can also be used as a "day lock" for securing the safe between uses without having to dial the combination in each and every time... Look at how a "day gate" is used on a bank vault so that the main vault lock does not have to be operated every time someone needs access to the vault...

Very very wrong...

Why do you think safe designers keep improving the materials and mechanics/mechanisms used to secure the contents of safes...

In the 1920's fun technology like plasma cutters didn't exist which would cut through an old safe like a knife through warm butter... In the olden days safes used to use chemical warfare like tear gas cylinders and such in the doors to deter people from drilling or blasting them open...

As far as pickpockets being a dying breed you are sounding like you are not from anywhere near a big city, pickpockets still exist and still lift wallets and other things from pockets, backpacks and purses that are wallet sized like cell phones, iPods and such... A wallet in a "cashless society" is often worth quite a bit more than a wad of cash in the first few hours after it is stolen yet before the owner can report all the stolen cards to each bank because basically no one keeps a list of all that information handy and the person has to go home to get all the account numbers and call customer service from the numbers on the account statements...

Identity theft is something on the order of a $40 Billion with a B dollar a year "industry" in the United States alone...

~~ Evan

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I believe that this combination lock (based on the photo of the front panel of the safe -- actually a security file cabinet) is of the kind where you disassemble it, and change the relation between the hub and the outer disc (where the notch is to allow opening when all are lined up). It also does not have the tumbler in the middle of the combination dial to switch from dialing mode to the retract the bolt mode. So this one would not have a change key, unlike the Sargent & Greenleaf ones. (It is a vintage device, FWIW.)

No -- the keyhole in question is not in the dial, nor in the back of the lock (which was not shown in the photos linked in the original question). Instead, it is in the center of another section to the left of the actual combination dial. This section is what withdraws the bolts in the door -- when allowed by the combination lock having been properly dialed. And the key simply keeps the withdrawal lever (actually two wings on either side of the keyhole) from turning -- or totally disconnects it from the bolt withdrawal mechanism. Without my hands on the device in question, and considering the one which I had was left behind in the apartment storage room about 1975, I can't check it. :-)

But it, like this one, has the door designed to slide back on tracks into a cavity beside the actual file cabinet, so it is out of the way during normal daytime access to its contents -- at the cost of the whole thing being a little wider than the more common Diebold security file cabinets which were at work before I retired.

Enjoy, DoN.

The key locking dial has several functions intended, but this is the first I have heard of the casual play theory.

the first function is to day lock the safe. This is used when some one is in and out of the safe all day long and wants to keep it locked, but does not want to re-dial the combo each time.

A secondary use is on a drop safe serviced by an armored car company. The merchant has the combination to the dial on the drop side of the safe but is not issued the key, so the cash stays secured in the event of a hold-up.

Roger Shoaf

BULLSHIT!!!

If there was, you would have had at least seven threads here asking what kind of gun:

1: How to mount it. 2: What gauge of wire to use. 3: Whether you should use a servo, solenoid or stepper motor. This would spawn multiple sub threads, as well. 4: What metal to make the mount with. 5: Where to get the cheapest bullets. 6: How to make it self destruct before the police arrive. 7: How to explain why someone broke into your building and shot themselves several hundred times, along with all the damage to the safe.

Very funny, good job.

i

replying to Steve W., Lala wrote: What if u forgot the code for your safe is there anyway to resetting it with out the code