Safe - very safe, apparently

I'm not convinced that he knows what he's doing when it comes to drilling my safe. I have been informed by one of the folks who frequents this newsgroup (you know who you are, and you know that I appreciate your guidance immensely) that the proper place to drill this safe would be under the dial, but "the locksmith" told me that he wants to drill it at a point about one-quarter inch to the left of the ring that surrounds the dial, i.e. about an inch-and-a-half over from the apparently proper location. Your comment quoted above (at least) implies that the dial has to be removed or ripped off, as it were, for drilling in the area that it normally covers, which agrees with the information that I have received via email earlier today.

See the problem? Simply stated, I don't want to have my safe drilled at all; this situation should never have arisen in the first place. I truly believe that the fault lies entirely with the locksmith that I hired to do this job, and that causes me to seriously question his competence to continue with any further activities in respect to my safe. If he wishes to come and play with the dial some more, that's fine; he can do no further damage that way. If he wants to start drilling holes and making further physical alterations in my safe door, now that's a different story altogether. If the lock was faulty, he should have discovered that before slamming the door shut. It seems to me that it's just basic common sense to check the action of the lock before actually locking anything up, and it seems to me that a locksmith should be more aware of that fact than anyone else in the whole wide world.

Maybe I'm an idealist. Maybe this guy's an idiot. Maybe both.

To be absolutely honest here, I am quite angry about this entire thing. I think I have a right to be. I, the customer, am sitting here with a "permanently locked" safe, that may now have to be drilled, and now find myself frequenting a locksmith's newsgroup in the desperate hope that I can personally find a way to open my safe!

*sigh* Sorry to unload on you guys that way; I know that you have been doing your very best to help me out and I truly appreciate everything that you have done for me so far, from the absolute bottom of my heart. Now this guy here, I could choke.

Thanks for your all of your help and advice.

I shall try the various combinations that "shiva" provided earlier tomorrow as I'm too tired and discouraged to play with that thing any more tonight.

Thanks again, guys. You are truly a wonderful and helpful bunch.

This is covered by basic contract law, even if there is nothing written down. In return for fitting a working lock to the safe, the Locksmith is entitled to payment. Until he has completed the work agreed in the contract (which he has not) he is not entitled to payment. If there is any dispute, this will have to be resolved in civil courts. To suggest that not paying a disputed bill is "larceny" is completely absurd. If the locksmith feels he is entitled to payment, then he can sue.

innocent_lamb, you are in the right on this one in almost any English-speaking country.

He isn't necessarily _wrong_, depending on the safe, but I do see your concern.

Understood. The question is how you (and he) are going to recover now that you're in this situation. If it isn't just a stuck fly or something else that can be diagnosed/worked past from outside, drilling may be the only good solution.

One of the advantages someone who specializes in safework has is that they're more likely to be able to come up with a non-drilling solution. Of course that's why they get the bigger bucks. ("If you think expertise is expensive, you haven't priced ignorance.")

If it was easy to open, it wouldn't be a safe...

Yes (though that isn't all bad), maybe, maybe. <smile/>

Understood. It's frustrating as all get-out. But -- again -- the question now is how to move forward.

Yep. Evan, you may want to add a course on basic contract law to your program of study.

(Though it should be noted that what's legal and what's ethical don't always track 100%... and I'm not pointing that comment at either party in this case.)

1) I've tried to be helpful here (*all the way around*) but you seem to only be listening to the parts of what I (and others) have written that could potentially solve you problem but completely disregarding everything we are saying about how anyone can make a mistake.

2) If he drills where he says he is going to drill, it's an acceptable (although less than desirable for him) drill point. What he wants to do will destroy the lock, meaning HE will have to pay for the second one. If it were me, I'd pull the dial, remove the dial ring, drill a scope hole, and do something that I'm not going to explain on an open forum. That would spare the lock itself. To do this requires an certain type of very expensive scope. He may not have one. If he does what says he wants to do the lock is history, but the only damage to your safe would be the drilled hole - one 1/4" hole - that is easily repaired,. I do it all the time.

3) I forgot what three was but there was one.

4) Whether you want your safe drilled or not, it may just come down to that. Drilling it is not going to (for all practical purposes) detract from it's value or effectiveness. If you are that concerned, tell him you want it repaired with a hardened pin (Available from Lockmasters - He'll know the number) And as someone else said; the repair, if done with a hardened pin, will leave your safe in better condition than it was at the drill point.

5) Anger can be your worst enemy. Let it go. It won't help to solve anything. Ever heard the expression, "You can catch more flies with sugar than you can with vinegar"? Getting angry is not doing to help your situation, especially if the guy is already willing to make good on it.

6) Since you skipped over answering the question I specifically asked you I'll ask again... Have you ever screwed up? (I'll take it your answer would be "yes". Does that make you an idiot? No. Only human.)

7) Are you an idealist? I don't know - Let me look it up?

According to Webster's:

idealism: the system that make everything consist of ideas, and denies the existence of material bodies, or denies any grounds for believing in the reality but percipient minds idea.

I'd say yes You don't seem to care that people make mistakes. You just seem to want your "pound of flesh". (LET IT GO!)

He, OTOH, knows he is wrong. And he's willing to make up for it in a

*reasonable* way.

Dude it's an _old_ record safe, not a $5,000 TL30. Not even a $400 B-Rate. Its old and not worth a whole heck of a lot monetarily. Wadda ya want?

Let the guy open it and fix it, and pay him the originally agreed upon price and forget about it. Then pray that the next time you screw up, the victim of your error will let you off the hook.

What goes around comes around.

One final thought.... take two minutes... a _whole two minutes_, and put yourself in his shoes.

I disagree with you on this one, Key. Give the guy one chance / one hole, to make it right. Why penalize the guy hundreds of dollars for a brain fart?

I believe what he meant (I may be mistaken and I hope I am) was that even if the guy drilled and repaired it at his own expense, he (innocent lamb) didn't think he should even have to pay for the _original_ job because of his inconvenience and because his safe had to be drilled.

That wouldn't be right. The guy's entitled to be paid *for the original job* once the safe is open and repaired.

No where did I read (unless I missed it) that the guy wanted to be paid (now) for the lock and labor even though the safe was locked up.

agree.. BUT... IMO- dialing outside the dial ring, means a very odd attack.. and he will have to install another new lock.. (making an assumption here, as to its 'handing') --Shiva--

If I had confidence in this fellow's ability to do the work properly, then I would agree with your point of view. At least, to the extent that I would pay him for his direct out-of-pocket costs.

As an illustration, some time ago I ordered some special lights from a shop here. The lights were promised to be delivered within two weeks. Making a long story short, the lights didn't show up until five months later, after many interim promises of "next week", with next week never actually arriving. Under most circumstances, this wouldn't have made a great deal of difference, but my situation at the time was such that the absence of these lights held up the completion of a construction project that I was having built. After discussing this matter with the owner of the shop where I had ordered the lights, he showed me his invoice for the lights and I gave him a cheque for that amount. We agreed that was a fair resolution; I do further business with that shop to this day.

If he offers (on his own volition; I don't think it's up to me to suggest this to him) to bring in a person that we both agree is qualified to effect the repairs needed, then I am currently inclined to tell him to go ahead, and I will pay him the originally agreed-upon amount. If, on the other hand, he insists that he can drill it himself and will offer no other solution, I am inclined to send him off with nothing to show, and will contact a better-qualified outfit myself and have repairs made.

I may change my mind. I am seriously considering Bobby's offer to discuss this matter with the local guy here as he strikes me as being an extremely competent and knowledgeable technician (as well as being a very nice man) who would be able to provide very solid guidance to this guy.

No, that question has not risen to date. I'm pretty sure he realizes that it would be a waste of his time and breath to approach me with the current situation being what it is.

Sorry Evan, I don't agree with you on this one. As far as I'm concerned paying the bill in full means you are satisfied with the work. Not the thing to do.... Maybe pay for the lock itself but nothing else. I would not pay the bill until I was satisfied with the "completed "job.

Leon Rowell

Evan wrote:

My guess is, he doesn't own a 90 degree scope. If there's no ERL (secret safe tech code) ;)drilling where he wants to drill is okay as long as he's okay with replacing the lock.

If I knew that this chap had great amounts of experience and expertise, and that this was indeed just a momentary lapse of judgment then I would be inclined to agree with you.

However, I now (20-20 hindsight) get the distinct impression that this may be (one of) the first safes that he has ever worked on. In other words, he bit off substantially more than he can chew and has got himself into something of a box.

Now, is it my fault that he overstated his abilities when I hired him to do this job? I hire tradesmen all the time to do everything from unclogging toilets to installing high-voltage power lines. I have no problem with someone telling me that a particular job is too big for him to handle, or not within his field of expertise. If you're not comfortable with doing a job, then tell me; I'll find someone who can do the job, and I'll probably call the first guy back again the next time I have a job that is within his scope.

As I've said many times before, if I was sure of his competence I would have no problem with this. But in view of past performance, I'm afraid there is a real chance that I could end up with a safe door that looks like it's been attacked by termites, and may still be locked up tight.

Again, that's you. And you strike me as a real honest expert in this field. Another thing that concerns me about this local chap is that all of the advice I received here seems to include something about turning the dial carefully and steadily. When he was trying to open the safe, he was cranking the livin' hell out of that dial rip-rip-rip-spin-whirrrrr. Another thing that makes me wonder how much knowledge and experience he really possesses.

Surely you will agree that I have good solid cause to question this guy's competence.

If you remember what it was, let me know. *grin*

Now there is a very useful piece of information to have, indeed. Thank you for that!

I'm not as much of a curmudgeon as I may appear in some of these postings. This situation is frustrating; doubly so because it was 100% avoidable.

I have indeed made mistakes. One of them was assuming that installation of a lock on a safe door was a simple and straight-forward job. I now know that it's anything but.

On the positive side, this experience has provided me with the opportunity to learn something about a subject that I had no knowledge of before, and the opportunity to "meet" and interact a bit with you lot here and I have frankly been enjoying the discussions surrounding this issue rather a lot. If only it wasn't my safe that's sitting locked up like that.....

You seem to somehow have gotten the idea that I want some kind of revenge. I don't. All I want is what I agreed to pay for initially, plus some kind of assurance that he isn't going to screw it up worse when he tries to fix it.

I really don't think that's unreasonable.

I hope so. We'll see what happens. I had truly hoped that I would be able to get the thing open based on the advice received here, and just get him to complete the repair of the lock and setting of the combination and whatnot on his return.

See above.

In this sorry affair, there is one party in all this that seems to be getting away scot-free.

Although most of the blame clearly lies with our slamming safe man, S&G have to take some of the fault here. If, as I would expect, a brand new mechanism has been installed, and if the lock has a defect as is looking likely, then clearly their quality control procedures have failed. So they owe the parties something here. It is possible that they may know for certain *exactly* what the fault is on this batch, and, be prepared to talk him out of his bind. After all, the locksmith is **their** customer. Hey, maybe they will even send out a tech who could manipulate it for him if you are suitably located?

What are S&G like on support? Or are they crap like most everyone in the lower end of the market?

tell ya what...

Email me. I'll give you my cell phone number (I'm on the road a lot). Have the guy give me a call and I'll ask him a few questions and see if I can get a handle on his competence. (You can even tell him why he's calling me) Then I'll report back to you on my opinion of him.

I'll make a few suggestions for opening it without drilling. If I think he shouldn't be the one to drill your safe I'll tell you - and him.

Howzat?

Bobby

I have been reimbursed by S&G for the cost of drilling a safe on which a three month old 6120 took a dump. The difference is... a) it worked for three months then quit, and b) it was installed by an S&G certified technician (yours truly).

In this situation the lock was never actually out into service and the guy apparently didn't try it before he closed the door. That combined with his apparent lack of substantial experience, S&G would probably blame it on poor installation by a non certified tech. I doubt they'll be prone to cut a check. :(

That being said, IF after the unit is open and the lock does in fact show a

*manufacturing defect* then I'm sure they would stand behind their product. They are a very old and reputable company.

Gosh. Now that is really going above-and-beyond.

Thanks for the offer!

no making fun of god is allowed. come to think of it, without imagination there is no god.

If you think that counts as making fun of god, you either have no experience with English idiom or are being MASSIVELY oversensitive

Some would agree with you, some would say you've got it backward. My opinion is FAR offtopic for this newsgroup.