Beefing Up and Re-Purposing a Cary

MrSurly

Hello! I’ve been lurking and decided to join in the fun!
This looks like just the place to air my ideas for making an old safe do a new job.

If it works, I save a buncha money and gain security.
If you all say its a bad idea, I’ll listen. Hopefully you’ll have some help for curing my clueless-ness.

Here’s the deal:

I need a gun safe. Long guns as well as hand-.

A few years ago, I bought an old Cary double door that was supposed to be from the 1880s.

The safe was an ’accountant’s model’ I would presume. Approximately 40″ X 60″ × 22″ equipped with a wooden card file drawer interior and a single interior lockbox.
It is NOT a high-security box, nor is it a real Fire safe.
By modern standards it would be a mid grade RSC at best.
When I get the pictures posted, it will be more clear for sure.
The door is seemingly stout with five 1″ live bolts.
Door has a 9 ga. face with 2″ angle frame (on the door)
The door frame on the body is .70 thick steel angle.
Cary 3 wheel lock, ⅜″ hardplate, no relockers (and no tear gas!)
An inch of corrugated fire insulation, probably asbestos (being very careful)
I knew the body was light but only recently discovered that it is only clad in 14 gauge!
This seems a bit out of sync with the doors.
There is angle-iron framing on the outside corners.
Don’t know the weight, but from moving it, I would speculate ₄₀₀-450.
It is on iron wheels.
Most of the drawers have been tossed and the interior refabbed into a makeshift gunsafe.

got to go. will fill in more later…

Dean Nickel

Your right we would love to see it. Once we see it, we will be able to say more.:8):

MrSurly

_continued—

I’m certain that the safe is not particularly historical
or rare or valuable, afaik.

I have been using it as a gun safe for years but after seeing how silly thin the body is, I know I have to do something.
so…. I started researching (again) new gun “safes” and find then lacking.

Suffice it to say that I am not going to buy a 12ga. Tote box to store the guns; if I buy new, it will be 7ga+ with a ¼″+ door.
That means that I’d have to spend over 2k.

That brings me back to the Cary; can I just beef it up to do the job?

I can weld, have materials, just looking ideas on the best way to implement the plan.

Oh, wait… I need a plan, too.

Still working on posting some pics (from
the phone)

MrSurly

OK, now to see it:
[ATTACH]6485[/ATTACH]

MrSurly

That should get us started.

I think it would be fairly straightforward to get a sheet of ¼″ a36 steel (250bux)
And cut the pieces to line the inside of the box after removing the wood, leaving the fire liner then welding the plate out. Putting the plate outside would cause difficulty on the rounded corners as well as requiring a lot of finish work.
Thoughts?

Dean Nickel

If you are up to the task it is work and yes you could armor the insides. It is a fire container. The liner is asbestos so please work with a mask and wet down stuff to keep that stuff out of the air and your lungs. Is it worth it? That would be up to you. I have that record safe as well and didn’t think it was worth putting armor on. The thing that will be hard, is to armor the lock. I would use a replacement lock with a hard plate mounting welded in place of the old one so that the new lock has some protection.

The modern gun safe might cost you about what you would put into that safe and offer better protection. So before you go thru all that look into safes online in the size you need. Remember you time is worth something. But then it would be all yours.

MrSurly

I follow you; I’ve been seriously digging on the gun safe offerings…. The fact is that getting a ¼″ body in this size with at least a ¼″ plate door is up in the three grand plus area. A B-rated AmSec or Griffin would be terrific but way more.
I can do the ¼ inside for 300 I think but yes, a lot of work.
Now to try to get the door up to spec (or close) I’m thinking of a plan to add some bolt work and yes, you are right about the hard plate. The lock is mounted on a plate which I had sort of hoped was hard plate… A cheap drill bit just shot that down!!
Now, educate me re: the lock vs. a modern lock?
Another silly question; does any one offer an offset gear drive for the spindle? It just seems odd that even expensive safes can have the lock punched(?)

Dean Nickel

The hardplate can be had with the mounting holes in it and tapped to the right screw size for the lock, and can be found at a good safe tech with a good group 2 dial lock or electronic lock if you desire. Each has its plus and minus. Keypads are quicker to open but are not as sturdy over time and require batteries and the dial lock is slower but time tested. You are not going to make hardplate without the ablility to harden metal, so you have to buy that. What lock you chose could impact where you put the mounting plate as you can offset the electronic lock.

A relocker is nothing more than a spring loaded pin in a location to lock the bolt work with cables or levers attached to the back plate of the lock. In the event that if someone punches the lock it keeps the safe locked. Then it is knowing the location that is important so keep that somewhere. So don’t worry about an offset gear.

As for your lock. It is a nice lock but it has a few flaws that can be exploited and it can’t be harden in the lock mount and there is a few things built into the modern lock that help keep the contents safe. Like anything else there were changes over time because of tech has changed. Don’t throw that lock away as it is in the collector realm and there are those that would pay for it if you don’t want it. If nothing else it can help you pay for the project.

MrSurly

Excellent information! Thanks for that. 🙁happy):

I understand about the hard plate and a hard plate configured to mount this old lock wouldn’t exist. I had this goofy thought that the footprint of this one could be ‘common’ or standard, but I realize that is a silly idea.

So now I will be in search of an S&G group II keyed Combo and a matching hard plate.

That should be easy to locate new, I assume? My goal would be to repaint as original (I have pictures somewhere) and retain original lock and handle locations.
I will add a cam plate a couple of live bolts as well as a re-locker just for kicks. I have access to lathes, mills, welding equipment. If only I had a huge press-brake…(!)
This is the sort of mechanical challenge that I can get obsessed with, I’m afraid.

What about the fire protection? How does the corrugated asbestos compare in performance with the modern ceramic materials? Certainly, no one would install the stuff new these days and I’m aware of the encapsulation/handling/disposal issues. However, since I have the option to just leave it alone, does it actually work better than the modern substitutes?

Just thinkin’ out loud

Ricky

wylk

If you wanted to keep the original lock, you might be able to create an adapter plate to go between the lock and a standard hard plate. Unfortunately you’d need a longer dial spindle which would be hard to find. Question for the real locksmiths, could you install a contemporary lock and re-use the original dial/spindle/ring combination for appearance’s sake? The threads would need to match (S&G uses 5/16-40 on safe locks and ⅜-30 on vault locks and the 8400 series; Mosler used ¼-28 on safe locks, and I think Diebold uses ⅜-32?), I don’t know what Cary used; and it might still turn out to be too short.

Just some ideas to add confusion!

MrSurly

I’m ok with moving to the new lock as I’d like the keyed S&G anyway. Figured I’d just aim for the same location to preserve the general look.

Dean Nickel

To answer your question on the fire rating of asbestos. It will not burn and it will give some protection to the contents. That being said I would NOT store ammunition/powder in that as it will get hot enough to toast that off. No I do not believe that the protection of the material is that good. It will keep metal cool enough to not do to much damage but if it is a hot house fire it will get toasty in there. The modern fire material releases moisture stored in it to cool the contents thru evaporation. As Asbestos doesn’t store moisture that doesn’t happen. So don’t expect paper to survive untouched (Darkened maybe) as well as don’t store anything that can go boom and it should be ok. It will come down to how hot the fire is and that might depend on how quickly the fire department responds.

Yes Doug I would love to hear from you on this point as in the past. :8):

MrSurly

I checked with a local fabricator today; for fifty bucks they’ll shear the plate to size and ‘brake’ it twice so as to create a “C” shape forming the back and both sides in one piece, similar to the way the current gun safes are made. I will (should) be able to pull the wood leaving the fireboard then lay in the bottom, slide this piece in and then clamp the top in there and start burning wire. I’ll need to arrange some serious ventilation for this!

It’s starting to do sound somewhat doable.