Pittsburg Safe Co

[billygoat]

Just joined the forum. It has a wealth of information.

Picked up an old floor safe from Craigslist for $30. Made by Pittsburg Safe Co. That is Pittsburg without the H. That is an important clue about its age. Pittsburgh (without the H) was only spelled that way between 1891 and 1911. I can find no info about the company. I believe the safe had been broken into. The combination lock was gone, the handle that moves the locking bar was broken off and the shaft was twisted. Someone put a lot of torque on that shaft.

I am a machinist and have a pretty extensive home shop with 3 lathes, 2 milling machines, 3 drill presses, 2 grinders, shaper and can make just about anything. I plan to abandon the combo lock set up and use a rim cylinder with a garage door dead bolt. I have made a few safes with this locking mechanism and it has worked out quite well. I already have a Medeco rim cylinder that I plan to use.

Stripped the safe down and started to machine pieces for mounting the deadbolt. Will need to make a new shaft for the locking bar. Should be able to show some more progress on the locking mechanism by the weekend.

[Gary Stephenson]

Nice, loving the workshop, thought you were a collector of beam trolleys until I saw the size of some of the chucks 8-) , you need them.

[Huw Eastwood]

Welcome billygoat, great workshop I can't imagine having that much space to play with!

[billygoat]

Started working on the door. Bolted on a 2"x2" block of steel for mounting the dead bolt. Milled a pocket for it. I was surprised that the cast iron was so hard.

Trolleys are a necessity. The 15" Buck chuck for the 20" lathe weighs 240 lbs.

[Huw Eastwood]

I was surprised that the cast iron was so hard.

Cast and chilled irons are notorious for it tbh- if it doesn't get you with a hard outer 'skin' then internal hard spots often will- and they'll decimate HSS tooling. Carbide drills, slot and end mills or the indexable lathe bits if turning, combined with very slow speeds generally get around the problem. I've had some stubs of cast bar in the past that've had hard spots so tough you'd think it was Stellite.

But, it's not always that bad- I recently turned a large spoked flywheel the extreme maximum diameter my lathe will take (it cleared the bed by about 2mm !) and, but for black graphite dust everywhere and a coal miners face it actually turned beautifully.

[billygoat]

Machined a housing for the cylinder. Fit everything and welded it to the door. Works quite well. Next is to make a new shaft for the locking bar.