The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-06-07
OPERATIONS ON SAFES.
An Expert Tells How These Receptacles
Often Get Out OF Condition.

An Export Tells How These Receptacle
Often Get Out OF Condition.
When a man is called on to open a safs it
is frequently with all the urgency and
anxiety attending a case of serious illness,
and the safe expert behaves himself in
much the same way as a doctor does. He
must diagnose the case, for the owner
seldom knows what the trouble i. The
expert almost always fnds ON the safe
and In the room the marks of the
most assiduous, but unprofessional solici-
tude, for the owner never calls an expert un-
til he has exhausted all his conceit of cum
ming and pretenslon of ingenuity. The
safe doctors will find finger marks on ali
parts of the safe, as though massage had
been tried. He will find a coat lying on
a fragment of u pair of suspenders
in another place. Sometimes ho will
find pieces of plaster knocked off
the ceiling by cuss words. All this simply
amuses him and puts him in good humor to
get at the safe. He puts his ear against the
safe and taps OF the door with a hammer.
He twists the spindle on which the dial is
placed. 1t things do not rattle Just right,
hs concludes that perhaps the difficulty is
caused by the wheels sticking together, and
he gives the door a bang; This l%oosens
things up and the combination works and
that's the end of it. Ii it 10 a
time lock safe, ss all the best bank
safes now are, the expert listens to see If
the clock is ticking, and If it is ticking reg
ularly. This may or may not help him.
When a time lock safs won't come open
there is but one thing to do. This is to
strip the door" Tho operation consists
of taking oil tho layers of which the door
is composed until the interior is reached.
1t is the work of a day or two, says the
Omaha World-Herald.
When the safe or vault has a combina-
ton the expert tries to open it by the COM
bination if he believes the machinery ia
all right. II the owner has forgotten
it experiments are tried, but it has been
found that it does not to pay TO keep
this up for any length of time-not longer
than an hour or two. III at the END of
that time no results are obtained the rules
of the trade demand a surgical operation.
This Is drilling. The objective point iB the
dog in the lock. This is the little piece
of iron or steel that keeps the bolts from
moving back. AZ soon AZ this ia knocked
off the bolts can be moved back by hand
ling the lever and the door comes
open. The latest safes ure constructed
with steel plates IN tho door. This
makes the drilling n tedious operation. In
the case of bank vaults it has sometimes
taken AZ long US forty-eight or seventy-two
hours. GuAtave Andrien had to work about
that long on a vault he himself built in ono
of the banks of tho city about two years
ago. Meanwhile the bank had to borrow
money from it's neighbors i'll order to carry
on its business.
Sometimes il is ensier to 90 to work on
the back of the safe aud work in from that
direction. The back Of safes are composed
only of iron, and thedrilling can therefore
DO done much more quickly.
Safe men say that 1t is a comparatively
easy matter to get into the old-fashioned