Figure 3. Mark is trying to remove the drilled-off snubber bar from the lock body. leſt us to it, and five minutes later we looked for a working electrical socket to provide power for the magnetic drill that I like to use. Aſter a further few minutes of searching, an employee told us that all of the basement electrical sockets had been disconnected or removed due to the constant flooding. Five minutes later, we were back to the van to get the second 50-meter exten- sion cable to to reach a first-floor mains socket that worked, and then we were all set with power. The job was just getting better and better. If it rained hard, not only were we going to get wet, but there was a rea- sonable chance we would also probably get electrocuted… basically we were in a reverse-defibrillator sort of situation! No pressure to get this safe open quickly, then. Do you ever get the feeling that you should walk away from a job? The Safe and Locks The Chatwood safe locks are not easily pickable — especially the versions with the anti-pressure devices — so I generally don’t waste any time trying to pick them. Instead, we had carried all the usual drill- ing gear, scopes, etc. two flights of steps www.savta.org Figure 4. Mark is drilling the bottom lock’s snubber bar. down into the cellar. We then started on the actual opening. The safe had two locks fitted, which was fairly normal. But a quick look down the top keyhole — followed swiſtly by a much longer look — confirmed that the lock was sadly not the standard Chat- wood lock that I would have expected. Things were just getting better and better. Aſter a few minutes of looking, I was confident that I had identified that the lock was a version I believe made by Kromer in Germany for Chatwood. And both locks were locked. In this wonderful location, they just had to be, of course. We went back to the van to pick up my iPad to locate a photo of one of these rare locks. It took a while, because for some reason I had it filed under Kromer, but eventually I found a photo of a similar lock. The lock you can see in the photos was, of course, not practical to pick. Of course it wasn’t; that would have been too easy! Aſter looking at the photos of a lock, I went back in the dark, damp cellar. I had to make a calculated decision about where to drill a hole in the safe. There was no point drilling the lock itself. First, because it was a somewhat rare lock, and I didn’t really want to damage it. Second, Figure 5. He’s still drilling! there would need to be at least two holes per lock to open them. Being in something of a rush, I decided to drill off the snubber bar in a position somewhere before it entered the lock body. All the locks did on this safe was to block the snubber bar, stopping the safe from opening. On the plus side, at least it wasn’t raining yet! Drilling Begins I carefully measured and marked the safe door, then set up the magnetic drill. It was ready to put a hole through the door and then drill off the snubber bar on the top lock. A standard HSS drill bit drilled about ¼" in diameter and ½" deep into the safe door and then stopped. I swapped to a tungsten-tipped drill bit, put plenty of pressure on the drill and carried on drill- ing without too much difficulty. Three drill bits later, I was through the safe door and looking at a round steel bar about ½" in diameter. After enlarging the drilled hole to slightly over ½" in diameter, I started drilling off the snubber bar. When drill- ing, the bar tended to make the drill bit driſt slightly off center, meaning it took March/April 2022 | SAFE & VAULT TECHNOLOGY 23
