Thank you David. Don is a very talented guy with an honorable history. He supplied me with the opportunity to participate in a business I never even gave a thought to before we met. The way he handled it is a different story. For now we are a did, not a do.
And Doug, thanks for the inside information. That is the kind of stuff that can take the guesswork out of drilling a factory original safe, for sure. My experience has proven, sadly, that most locks like that have already been swapped out long ago for something else. The original has already been put on display in someones collection, ad replaced with something hopefully functional.
A thought came to me out of this conversation. Opening safes is a little like opening Oysters in search of a pearl. Some will smash it with a hammer for the prize. They might get a pearl. They will definitely get a dead Oyster. Some will coax it open. They might get a pearl. If done carefully they will at least still have the oyster, and a chance for another pearl later.
JD, some would give up the hope for the pearl and go for the mother of pearl. It may not be as valuable, but more likely to find. Like a safe, you could smash it for its contents or valuable parts (like the lock). Or you could open it carefully. You will get what may be valuable inside, and still have a secure space to keep your own valuables in the future.
