Old 35+ year old wall safe in a building that use to be storage for a bank. Could there still be anything valuable inside? My first plan of action was to try and learn how to safecrack using a stethoscope, a light touch and graphing points. I had no idea what model# or how many wheels (combination numbers) were in this lock. After a few weeks of reading and trying to graph points unsuccessfully, I assumed the lock either had anti-safe cracking technology or was too old and something was off inside. (Graph was not plotting properly).

Next step was to try and remove the safe door by force. At this point I had no idea what the door locking mechanism looked like so I decided to just pry and hammer the lock out and use an angle grinder to see if I could access the combination mechanism to smash them out.

A few hours later and I start to see something. The middle area seemed to be a lot thicker than I thought.

Hours later on another day and some more random grinding reveals more thick metal and frustration. Tried using a Rigid carbon coated metal drill in the center, did not last very long.

Cutting more near the edges revealed two spots on the left and right where I needed to grind, hammer and pry until the door could come out.

About 25+ hours later over the course of almost 4 weeks (incl. reading up on safe cracking and trying to graph) and the door comes off...

The pin and part of the lock housing that was smashed in sits inside with a lot of metal grinding dust. Although I was disappointed not to find anything after all that work, it was more satisfying finally getting the door off and not wondering about this old wall safe. It made sense that whoever had access would empty it before moving out, but maybe this small old sturdy safe secured some neat stuff in the past.

$120 worth of metal cutting blades later...

Turns out the safe had 6 wheels or 6 numbers in the combination! Would have been very difficult for a newbie like me to safecrack the conventional way even if it was plotting properly.

This thick mofo was still warm an hour later from the grinding friction. Although there was nothing inside, I hope you also got a warm feeling inside from seeing an ending to this.