A safe that was too safe.

Dan,

You miss my point. The gist of the article was about a machine shop that had to open a jewelers safe because a competent locksmith was not available or no one wanted to bother putting them together.

But I think we in the trade should not think poorly of the machinist that cut the top off the box. He used the tools he had available to do the job at hand. The fact that you could have done it faster and with less damage is moot. The jeweler was out of business due to a failure of the box. While this failure may have been avoided by competent preventative maintenance practices, the lockout had to be addressed promptly. Remember the safe in question was somewhere in New Zealand, a country with more sheep than people.

I would surmise that the less people you have, the less locksmiths there are and good safe men are even tougher to find.

As to my expensive toys comment, you may view this for what it is, pure unadulterated envy. My borescope is dim, and has a very poor field of view. The thing is so old that the wire has to be held just so or the lamp won't light.