First Safe - Not going well... So far

[dlprince69]

I recently purchased a 1973 house that had been remodeled in 2010. The existing closet had a metal round cover over what the tile guys thought was a drain so they kindly left access by tiling around it and leaving a nice cutout to cover the plate. (The owner during the remodel didn't know it was a safe) The lid was firmly attached with old carpet adhesive and years of gunk.

So with in days of moving in, I saw the cutout and immediately knew it was a safe. It took more effort than expected to get the dust cover off but soon I was looking at a Major Txx4 series floor safe.

I located the contact range at 50. 7/8 to 59 7/8 (Which seemed a little strange, but whatever...)

Parked all wheels at R0 and checked for wheel pickup L. Pickup was at L6 (So a 6 number conversion R to L on W3)

I was able to pickup each wheel going L, so it is a three wheel lock.

Next step was to graph AWL, started at 0
Found L10 as a point of interest early
Wide area starting at L17.5 that flattened at L30
Ran into issues around the contact area due to the wide fly/pin displacement) So I parked W3 at 70R to continue with W1 and W2 from L42.5 to 62.5L (I thought this would be good since W3s number wouldn't be in this range anyway.
Started AWL again at L62.5
Found L55 as a point of interest
Found L70 as a point of interest
The rest of the pack was flat to L75 to L0

Amplified L7-L13 and picked 11 as a number (Hi/Lo graph not shown)
Amplified L50-L60 with w1&w2 AL w3 R70 (Nothing useful)
Amplified L65-L75 and picked 70 as a number (Hi/Lo graph not shown)

Ran several test combos since it was getting late and was being called to dinner.....
No joy on day one but had fun.

Next step will be AWR to see if anything else pops out and maybe confirm existing points of interest and verify L R conversions

Questions:
Is the contact area of 50 7/8 to 59 7/8 strange for a group 2 lock?
Should the wheel pack L R conversion be 6 digit wide? (maybe a stuck fly)
Was parking w3 at R70 an ok solution for mapping through the contact range?

Fun times ahead...

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[GWiens2001]

Those are typically screw change for the combination, so 6 is very likely correct.

Gordon

[MrWizard]

That Major is has a hand change type wheel pack the kind you press the center out of each wheel and relocate the gear like meshing teeth to new number. They also move around the drop in point on all those so it can be anywhere around the safe. I have to call them and give my password to get the drill point from the serial number as it is different for each one.

Richard

[jharveee]

Seems to me you have it solved.

That is if 11 is a gate and 70 is a gate.

Just Brute force the unknown gate.

Let BF= brute forcing

Possible combos.

BF,11,70
BF,70,11
11,BF,70
11,70,BF
70,BF,11
70,11,BF

You can reduce the possibilities by assigning gates to wheels.

Like if your sure 70 is on the third wheel, then you would only try
BF,11,70
or
11,BF,70

Yep, seems simple in my mind.

Keep at it.

[jones]

That Major is has a hand change type wheel pack the kind you press the center out of each wheel and relocate the gear like meshing teeth to new number. They also move around the drop in point on all those so it can be anywhere around the safe. I have to call them and give my password to get the drill point from the serial number as it is different for each one.

Richard

Last one I drilled was on the weekend, so I couldn't get a drill point, so I guessed. I think my pick was like 58 & I picked right enough to get mine open it def helped to have a borescope, I would have never opened it otherwise

I understand the factory-set combo's for Major are still available from Amsec, if you have the credentials

[dlprince69]

Second session with this lock - After reading more forum posts, I started over with a new AWL graph at 2 inc. I also feel my touch has improved since the first attempt.

Graph 1 - AWL

Found an indication between 6 and 12

I had problems in the drop zone with w3. Since the wheel pack is indicating 6 inc wide, I just pushed w3 to R45 when taking reading between 46 and 60

Found a nice gate signature between 68 and 74, I amplified these on every 1 inc and found the center at L72
Tests shows L72 on w3 (I used R34 as a test number since it was around a high area on this chart)

All going well so far!

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Graph 2 - 1&2 AR w3 @ L72
Found an indication between 8 and 14 (This is the same area found on the Graph 1 shifted due to the wheel pack pin width)
Found a nice area between 60 and 70, I amplified this area on everty 1 inc and found the center at 67 1/2
Testing showed R67 1/2 to be on w2

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At this point I was pretty sure I would find w1 between 6 and 12 and ran a few test combos to check it out. No luck.

Graph 3 - I decided to graph w1 as I went just for the experience fully expecting the lock to open somewhere during the process.

As you can see the entire graph was flat, which means the fence was not resting on w1 and means w2 or w3 was not centered over a gate.

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At this point I am open to suggestions.

Next plan of action:
Go back to graph 1 and do isolation testing on the area between 6 and 12 and also 78 to 74 to absolutely lock these gates (low areas) to a wheel (s).
Go back to graph 2 and do isolation testing on the area between 8 and 14 and also 60 to 70 to absolutely lock these gates (low areas) to a wheel (s).

I still feel the combo will be some flavor of 11, 68,72 (The exact wheels and L/R conversion issue should prove out with more testing)

I do feel good that the graph numbers are solid except maybe the graph 1 AWL 46 to 60 range where I pushed w3 back to R45 to take the point reading.

As before, any in-site would be helpful.

DP

[Libertyclicks]

Hi dlprince69.
Good work so far.
Your graphs can come out a bit inconsistent if you move where the other wheels are resting since you could bump the fence up with a hi spot on one of the wheels you aren't working with.

I recommend All Wheels Around to see if there is a general low spot you should park the wheels at to continue (I would go increments of five, no graph needed just note any deep lows), then set w1 and w2 on that low spot and do wheel 3 around.

I hope it helps, I must admit it's been a while since I touched a lock but I still enjoy the theory.

-LC

[dlprince69]

This process too more time than it should have, but I wanted to understand each step of the process so I graphed way too much and followed many dead end leads.

Here is a breakdown on session #3

I went into this session confused as to why my previous indications were not as repeatable as I thought they should be. In session #1, I had a nice 11L indication and 70L on w3 seemed to be a great number. I now know that a good indication and finding the center doesn't always mean its a gate, only a low spot which is still very valuable.

So I started session #3 with the assumption that I haven't found any gates, just low spots. Parking w1&2 at previously found low spot L72, I took w3 AR looking to verify that w3 was actually reading, and to detect any lower spots to park w3 for future testing. What I found was that w3 was reading a high area from 20-60. The area from 0-20 and 60-99 were lower or equal to the parking spot of L72 for w1 & 2

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Best indication in the contact area was 51 - 59 3/8 = 8 3/8 which happened to be at L80

So this was positive information and gave me a nice picture of w3. For the graph #2 - I parked w1 at L72 and w3 at L80 (New low spot for w3)

20140928_183951.jpg

I ran this graph for every 10 inc again looking to verify that w2 was indicating and looking for new low spots for w2. It only took a few graph point to locate a nice low spot at 50-51.

Best indication in the contact area was 51 1/4 - 58 7/8 = 7 5/8 at R51

Graph #4 was still parking w1 at 72 w2 at R51 and w3 AL to locate a deeper low spot.

20140928_183959.jpg

I ran the area around L80. This area was now indicating very well since w2 was now parked at a low spot as to not mask the gate. A true gate signature popped out at L80 - L81

Best indication in the contact area was 51 1/4 - 58 7/8 = 7 5/8 at L81 (I was expecting the area to be tighter but there was no denying the signature)

Graph #5 - Now that I had a nice gate indication for w3 at L81 and a nice low spot for w2, it was time to push w1 AL to find a better low spot.

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I started again with every 10 inc looking for a low area and to verify that w1 was reading and not being masked by another wheel. The graph didn't really jump out with anything good but there was a high area from L10 - L30 and the rest of the wheel was flat (still being masked) As I didn't want to follow another false lead and to maintain the goal of looking to work the wheel pack to lower and lower numbers, it was on to graph #6 leaving w1 until later.

Graph #6 - w1L72 w2AR w3L80 - As I knew w3 w3 had a gate at L80 and w1 was not indicating, it was time to work on w2 to push it to a lower area.

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I started at R0 and went up to R14 but the contact area was much higher than my best indications so there was no need to run the full wheel. I focused on the area around the existing known low spot at R51. The contact area tightned and R42 poped out as the best low spot.

Best indication in the contact area was 51 3/8 - 58 5/8 = 7 2/8 at R42

So now I was working with X-42-80 but since the contact area moved drasticly tighter I wanted to amplify w3 around the L80 number. I found L79 was a little better indication.

Best indication in the contact area was 51 3/8 - 58 4/8 = 7 1/8 at L79

Graph #7 - At this point I had X-42-79 as the combo but wanted to keep graphing in case something else could be learned.

20140928_184030.jpg

w1AL w2R42 w3L79

Started at L0, I knew the w1 number was most likely going to be a high number but started at zero anyway. The indications started out higher than my known best low area which ment that w1 was reading and a perfect picture of w1 was being displayed all the way up to L60 where the lock opened!

20140928_184041.jpg

L60 R42 L79

And yes, the safe was empty except for a cash strap and a 1971 penny. Still, the best feeling is when spinning that last number and returning to the contact area to feel the bolt retract.

At this point I feel I could do it again much quicker and looking over my first couple of session graphs, I think focusing on gates and high low testing is very inaccurate. The best method, at least for this lock was to find low areas for wheels in isolation and keep working the wheel pack lower and lower.

Time to reset the combo and try it again!

[escapenrv]

Great job. Hard work does pay off after all.

Sorry all the gold had been removed

Steve

[GWiens2001]

Excellent work! When the bolts retract, it feels so good.

Every lock is a little different, even from the same model lock. The more experience you get, the better your skills.

Keep it up!

Gordon

[jharveee]

The take away for me is to keep trying.
Low spots that aren't gates, can be used to unmask true gates.
I used to hate low spots, now I find them to be like dropping into a "False Set".
Nice explanation.
Thanks

[Papa Gleb]

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS MATE. Amazing accomplishment and now you have a working safe

[Oldfast]

CONGRATS!! Not only an open safe... but your patience & hard work allowed for extra learning.

....the best feeling is when spinning that last number and returning to the contact area to feel the bolt retract.

Exhilarating. Hard to replicate. Different. And it never gets old