Welcome to our world exploring the Historical, Political and Technological aspects of Locks, Keys and Safes

Results 1 to 4 of 4
  1. #1
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    1,485
    Country: United States

    Default Copper in Vault and Safe Doors

    From time to time the use of copper in vault and safe doors has come up. I've generally associated this with Mosler doors, and in particular doors made from what they called Donsteel. Mosler also used copper in non-Donsteel doors. And it's been used in products from other makers.

    The main point is to diffuse the heat from a torch in order to thwart such attacks.

    I managed to find a Mosler patent that discusses this in the context of money safe doors. The "bad" news is that the patent was filed in 1960, while the practice actually goes back to the 1920s and possibly earlier. The patent mentions pouring molten copper into a door with appropriate cavities, and spinning it so the molten copper is forced into the spaces.

    The patent is US 3,128,728. If I find any more patents, I'll post them here.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    266
    Country: Germany

    Default

    How about this one from 1907: GB190725188A

    To prevent a safe or strong room from being broken into by means of a blowpipe or other application of intense heat, the steel or other metal plates forming the outer part of the body and door of the safe or strong room is lined with sheet copper or other metal having high conductivity.
    And 1912 DE258673C, 1913 US1132902A, 1924 from Mosler US1561845A, 1932 from Tann GB400274A

    And the torch resistance of stainless: GB191006240A

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
    Posts
    1,485
    Country: United States

    Default

    Good spotting. I neglected to look at the last page of the patent 3,128,728, which listed several related patents.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2013
    Location
    St. Louis (63031), Missouri
    Posts
    69
    Country: United States

    Default Here's a twist for you.

    I was asked once to make a night depository out of an old round lug door safe. I started to cut the hole in the top for the chute and was stopped a half inch in by a layer of copper. I hacked a hole through that and another layer of steel appeared. Starting to burn through, smoke filled the room. Before I could get my cutting goggles off the bubbling sulfur layer started burning and cleared the entire building for a day. Now that's security! By the way, I continued outside the next day. It made a great depository.

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •