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Unique O. B. McClintock safe

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L4R3L2

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Posts: 257

Joined: Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:48 pm

Location: Sutter County, CA

Post Sat May 09, 2020 4:30 pm

Unique O. B. McClintock safe

I got this safe door, and it was unique in so many different ways, I thought I'd share it. I'll get to the lock in the next post, so be patient.
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It was labeled as "O. B. McClintock". Oliver B. McClintock of Minneapolis, from what little I was able to find, "was the most prolific in alarm company sales to banks from the early 1900's to 1947 when it was taken over by Diebold" (https://gtjournal.tadl.org/2015/04/).
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Here is the back of the door. Note the electrical contact and insulator at the top of the door, which I assume communicated with contacts within the safe at one time.
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Here is the back of the door with the cover plate off. If you look closely you will see three wires at the top which have been cut. These would have been connected to the contact plate at the top of the back cover seen in the previous photo. I know one of the wires is connected to the lock, one is probably a ground wire, and destination of the third is still unknown.
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This door was set up with a system of wires and contacts, some of which were cut or removed. Luckily, the lock contacts were present, and it was just a matter of getting the correct brass mounting screws and reattaching it.
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A closeup of the bolt carrier shows this spring tab, which I'm sure was part of the alarm system. I don't see any wires under the carrier, or any evidence of anything that would have activated the plunger. It's a mystery.
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The under side of the carrier has some clues, but I don't quite know what to make of them. Under the spring plunger is a screw, and across from the plunger is a threaded hole with a circular pattern showing evidence of having had some part attached.
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I didn't see any wires beneath the carrier, but closer scrutiny may be in order. Someday I may disassemble the door to trace where the mystery wire is routed.

I thought maybe the dial might have had some wiring, so I removed the dial to check. Under the dial you can see the original wood grain paint job. You can also see the insulation inside the door. There was no tube, and the insulation, upon magnification, has fibers incorporated in the fill, which is almost certainly asbestos. There was no wiring seen on the dial side of the door. In the next post, we'll delve into the M6730 lock on this door.
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Last edited by L4R3L2 on Sat May 09, 2020 6:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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L4R3L2

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Posts: 257

Joined: Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:48 pm

Location: Sutter County, CA

Post Sat May 09, 2020 4:53 pm

Re: Unique O. B. McClintock safe

The Sargent & Greenleaf M6730 lock on this door has the relocker removed. The end of the lock case was cut, drilled and tapped to receive an alarm contact plate attachment. Furthermore, the drive cam is notched to activate/deactivate the alarm contacts, and the gates were widened.
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The dial locks at 70. When the dial is locked at 70, the alarm contact enters the notch on the drive cam, and the contacts are open.
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The contacts are also open when the drive cam gate passes by, and closed at all other positions. It's impossible to rotate the drive cam without opening and closing the contacts. I'd love to see a patent on this device, and especially the whole system as it pertains to the circuitry, including other contacts in the door which have been altered or removed. Was there a time delay element once dialing was started? How was the alarm turned on? Which contacts were NO (normally open), and which were NC (normally closed) in operation? Were any relays involved? Etc.

In the next post I will go through the initial manipulation, and after that explore the possibility that the dial locking at 70 may be by design to help thwart manipulation.
Last edited by L4R3L2 on Sat May 09, 2020 6:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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L4R3L2

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Posts: 257

Joined: Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:48 pm

Location: Sutter County, CA

Post Sat May 09, 2020 5:31 pm

Re: Unique O. B. McClintock safe

Manipulation.

I always manipulate the locks on new acquisitions before I look at any combination provided. Luckily for me, the alarm contacts on the lock (which I had no idea was present) had been detached, so manipulation was not as difficult as it could have been.

But, FIRST! THIS threw me for a loop!
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This lock being mounted left hand, the changing index on the dial ring is to the right of the opening index, as it should have been. BUT, the whole dial reads backwards, counter-clockwise! I've never seen this before, not even in catalogs. One has to become somewhat dyslexic to dial this lock, and manipulating it requires a complete reversal in thought for an extended period. It's not just a matter of dialing right-left-right, this backward dialing created quite a challenge, especially at the onset. After spinning for a while, it got a bit easier once I was able to put my brain in reverse.

The combination set on this particular lock had me opening it in this manner. The final combination turned out to be
74R/34L/54R

Contact points were felt at around 92 to 94. Pretty narrow, I thought. Little did I know the nose of the lever was feeling a notch in the edge of the drive cam for the alarm contact, and that the nose was lifted away from the drive cam at its gate by the wheels, so no drive cam gate contact points were detectable initially.

Running the wheels around for feel, I noticed that a slight snag was felt at 53L from the second turn on. So, I used 54L for wheel three. Sure enough, the fence was riding the wheels at this point.

The rest of the manipulation proceeded as follows...

1&2 AR/3@54L
FELT NEW CONTACT POINT @ 11-12L

Found low area @ 32, 34, 36R
Used 35R lowest centered

Ran:
54L/35R/54L = contact area of 2.2 (even though this was in the alarm contact notch, it was usable)
35R/2&3@54L = contact area of ~4

So, ran wheel 1 AL with 35R on wheel 2:
AL/35R/54L

At 72-74L the CA became a single point, found the drop point, and the lock was unlocked.

Manipulated combination 73L/35R/54L, to R to stop, then L to open.

Converted the combination to RLR and centered.
74R/34L/54R

It's important to realize that manipulation of this lock would have been drastically different had the alarm contact been attached to the lock body at the time, as demonstrated in the next post.
Last edited by L4R3L2 on Sun May 10, 2020 3:50 am, edited 3 times in total.
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L4R3L2

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Posts: 257

Joined: Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:48 pm

Location: Sutter County, CA

Post Sat May 09, 2020 6:02 pm

Re: Unique O. B. McClintock safe

Once I had screws to reattach the alarm contacts to the lock case, things got even more interesting with multiple and overlapping contact points.

The alarm notch in the drive cam can be felt by both the nose of the lever and the contact spring. The gate in the drive cam can be felt by the contact spring, and by the nose of the lever when the wheels permit it to be low enough.
Here are the various combinations of contact points...
..due to......... Lever....... Alarm contacts
Drive Cam.......11-(20+) .........90-94
Alarm Notch.... 91-94..............70

Note that the true contact point(s) are very faint or non-existant, and how the CPs of 90-94 overlap, preventing good indications from the lever or contact spring being used for manipulation. This may be why 70 was chosen for the lock/alarm sensor position. The true RCP was not felt at all initially, as the wheel(s) lifted the fence over that area for most of its rotation, but that could change with a change of combination, so I'm not sure if that was intentional or not.

Here are the overlapping Right Contact Points. The nose feels at about 91 in the alarm notch, and the alarm spring feels the gate at about 90.
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Here is the Left Contact Point, where the nose feels the alarm notch and the alarm spring the gate at around 94. The nose is off the drive cam in this photo, as the wheels hold it up during much of its rotation, but you can get a sense of how the overlapping contact points can be very confusing.
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And, again, the contact spring enters the alarm notch at a dead 70.
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I think it's more than coincidental that the lever nose and alarm springs engage the gate and notch simultaneously. It seems to be designed to confuse manipulation readings. I was able to open this lock mostly by feeling the notch with the nose, as the spring was not connected, and the nose was lifted above the gate at that point. Had the alarm spring been attached, feeling the notch would have been difficult to differentiate from the spring simultaneously feeling the gate. The only place this could happen was at 70 on the dial, which just happens to be where the dial locks. Very clever!
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femurat

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Location: Italy

Post Sat May 09, 2020 10:41 pm

Re: Unique O. B. McClintock safe

I've never seen anything like this. Thank you for the detailed and thorough explanation.

The alarm notch at 70 is not a coincidence imho. It causes the greatest possible distraction in that position.

Cheers :)
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MartinHewitt

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Post Sun May 10, 2020 3:15 am

Re: Unique O. B. McClintock safe

Thanks for sharing, C3P0^H^H^H^HL4R3L2. It is not that rare that the lever is riding on the wheels. It can only be accident on the Sparrows ARCO lock. I have seen that too on the Satoh Sun Magnetic, Mosler and Yale friction fence locks and Bode-Panzer padlocks. On the padlock it was very convenient, because I could feel two of the gates.
In case you wonder ... Martin Hewitt is a fictional detective in stories by Arthur Morrison:
Martin Hewitt, Investigator Chronicles of Martin Hewitt
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Oldfast

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OldddffAASSTT the Spin Master Extraordinaire and American Lock Slayer
OldddffAASSTT the Spin Master Extraordinaire and American Lock Slayer

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Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:16 am

Location: Michigan

Post Mon May 18, 2020 12:03 pm

Re: Unique O. B. McClintock safe

.

Thank you so much for sharing this Terry(!)... and in such great detail.

So many intriguing things & questions with this one. Very interesting.

And the CCW numbering of the dial?! How crazy is that?!
I have no doubt that made you feel retarded for a bit, lol.

Great find. I'm jealous.
" Enjoy the journey AS MUCH as the destination."
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L4R3L2

Active Member

Posts: 257

Joined: Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:48 pm

Location: Sutter County, CA

Post Mon May 18, 2020 11:41 pm

Re: Unique O. B. McClintock safe

Thanks. I thought this one was worth bringing to show-and-tell.

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