Anyone know how to open a safe?

I have an old safe in the wall of my house I’m trying to open. Previous owners never opened it, it’s been closed for at least 15 years. I’ve been working my way through the possible combinations and just managed to find a combination that allows the right lever to slide across. The left lever will not move though. I assumed they would both move together on the correct combination. With the right lever opened, the dials won’t turn, it isn’t possible to select a different combination for the left lever.

Cool!

Dunno, hire a thermal lance? Drill it, pop in a camera and see if it’s worth proceeding.

I presume you have given the left lever some welly in case it is sticking. Maybe you need to find the left combination first if it is different.

Blow the bloody doors off !

My brother used to be a locksmith.  He swears by these guys as the best safe engineers he knows of.  Their facebook page is full of successful non-destructive openings of old safes, including some very cool antique ones.

That hinge doesn’t look very strong.

Maybe you’ve onlocked the right hand bolts and you could just cut the hinge off and prise it open??

Given it’s an old safe tere might well be an asbestos rope seal behind that door.
Just to spoil your day.

The hinge is probably just for keeping the door on, there’ll likely be sliding bolts that actually keep it shut so cutting the hinge probably won’t help. (not always, but it seems like a lot of lock for a safe that lacks that)

When I worked for the bank, the safe company could open pretty much anything- usually it was for a lost key/forgotten combo. Occasionally, they’d send an ex-con and a person whose job was blatantly just to watch the ex-con, it was pretty funny. They got into our massive cash safe after one of the combo locks broke, pretty impressive- went in entirely by destroying and extracting the broken lock without damaging the door at all.

So if I wanted that open and also didn’t want it totally destroyed, I’d call a safe company. It was expensive to get a safe opened intact since it’s suck a rare skill, but way quicker than cutting it open.

Alternatively, just rub it with a bit of gear outer, that stuff will cut through anything in no time.

As above, I’d grind through the hinge and see if i could pry it open. If you use heat it might destroy the millions of pounds that are obviously in there.

I’ve seen pickaxes go through steel concrete steel build safes

Have you tried 6 6 6?

If that doesn’t work, I can suggest other ones for a small fee?

What was the combination for the right side?

does it have any relevance or a hint as to what the left side might be?

EG If the owner was a Shakespeare fan they might set one side to be 230 and the left side to 023. Say it out loud and use nought not zero for the middle digits and it might make sense.

Other common codes that have worked for me on a number of security gates in the past are 1066, 1945, 1966. Not sure they will help on the safe but you get the idea.

Perhaps try mirroring the positions of the dials?

I used to know a guy who’d get into that no problem. He’d need payment though, & the last person who paid him for getting into a safe was Charlie Kray. 😂

When I worked for the bank, the safe company could open pretty much anything- usually it was for a lost key/forgotten combo. Occasionally, they’d send an ex-con and a person whose job was blatantly just to watch the ex-con, it was pretty funny.

Place I used to work for did a lot of military work – all classified and we had MoD issued safes – one per staff member. Only after a few decades we had lots of safes for people who had retired / left and only they knew the combination. We had a safe cracker come in who drilled the mechanism to open them. He had to be watched by someone with the highest clearance who would then whisk away the contents to be destroyed.

…with a whisk.

If the left lever isnt moving it might be the weight of the door is resting on it – see if you can get a screwdriver or pry bar under the door edge and give it a bit of a lift to free it

there was a thread on here many moons ago with someone opening a safe – wonder if it was pre-hack – think it contained bearer bonds or something.

As above – unless you want to use the safe as a safe in future just drill a hole and see if theres anything or nothing in there before going to any effort or cost.

I used to know a guy who’d get into that no problem. He’d need payment though, & the last person who paid him for getting into a safe was Charlie Kray.

A friend of mine was visiting a prison and his visit coincided with a minor royal visit – while the royals were inside smelling the fresh paint their driver managed to lock the keys in the royal car. Lots of panicking as theres a tight schedule –  Quick thinking – someone points out the prison is full of criminals – go find someone with a history of car theft – so they go grab the nearest crim with suitable form – show him the car – show him the keys inside – ‘can you get them out?’.

No problem – and he just puts his boot through the window 🙂

They’d forgotten that, generally speaking, its only the idiots who get caught, not Raffles the Gentleman Thief.

As per Northwind and maccruiskeen above,

I would expect that the two sliders open towards the centre of the door. The right-hand side one has pulled a locking bar out of the hinge side, which is easy because the hinge is carrying the weight of the door on that edge, the left is jamming because it’s sitting on the bar.

I might be tempted to get some sort of drift like a cold chisel onto that left slider and just **** it one. 😁