That’s an interesting picture that Doug posted. The heavy engineers ratchet brace is a pretty lost and forgotten bit of kit these days. Mention ratchet brace and everyone thinks of the lightweight carpenters tool, but a heavy engineers rig modified like that gives some serious push to it. Last time I saw one being used was for drilling out stays up inside the inner firebox of a locomotive boiler, a rarely encountered bit of kit, but something that still has its place even today for certain jobs.
The photo and topic will strike a note with anyone who has the 1968 ‘Chubb Collectanea’ book. There’s good references to some of the big attacks on British safes, and similar to the attack that Doug has pictured. Although I think they were a fair bit later though, probably 1900—20s.
Most cases were badly reported by the press- it turned out the 10 inch holes reportedly cut with ease through 7 inch thick solid steel safes, actually turned out to be 4 inch holes cut through the thin walls of fire resisting safes. If I remember right it was down to Ratner’s in the end to set the record straight and tell the public how it really was.
If the safe in the picture is a jewellers or bankers quality then I’m impressed. Seriously impressed! But although it looks an impressive safe I haven’t a clue as to what it is or what sort of materials and thicknesses would be in the door and body. Anyone who’s broke a sweat on a big old Chatwood, Hobb’s, Chubb, Milner etc, jammed in a tight corner with only a couple of foot of space, wedged on a stone floor and struggling to drill through their toughest hard plate knows that a quarter inch hole with modern tools can still be hard work. A four inch diameter hole without power and entirely by hand I can only imagine!
Its also got me thinking about the drill bits and hole saws they’d have had available back then. I know that tungsten carbide was stumbled on by Osram the light bulb makers in the 1920s, and was developed further and marketed a few years later by Krupps. Like already mentioned, diamond tooling has been around a long time, and it was to replace diamond coatings on drawing dies that led Osram to their discovery. Since they were already using diamond coatings of a sort, they must have had a way of fixing or coating steel tools with it. I can’t think how though, as nowadays it’s done with so many modern fusion processes which definitely weren’t available back then. Tungsten carbide is easy in comparison, and something I’ve brazed onto tools myself in order to make one-off drills for safe work and unusual face cutters for machining.
The age old diamond cutting trade doesn’t throw much light on it either, as it’s mostly done by lapping using pastes on cast iron rather than ‘fixed’ or rigid diamonds like on cutting tools. One things for sure, they must have had a way around it and some seriously tough cutting edges to penetrate hard plates with arm power like that, and at a time when manufacturers were really starting to make them tough.
