My new old BAUCHE safe

femurat

Today I bought an old BAUCHE safe at an antique shop. It was not cheap but I haven’t seen another one like it. I’ve seen combo locks like this in a book or website but never in person. It works like a charm and has the two original keys.

Cheers 🙂

Huw Eastwood

That’s a beauty femurat, always loved those compact sized French safes. Between Fichet and Bauche and their amalgamation theres many versions over the years, I could never understand why our British manufacturers never offered something similar. They crop up for sale on the continent but rarely seen here in the uk.

Incidentally Fichet Bauche continued to make a ‘modern version’ like your safe right up until recently, called the ‘Richelieu’.
They had an M2b keylock and a modernised 3 gear version of the combination like yours has. Looked just like a modern version of it but with 3 gear tubes on the door instead of 4, and of course they were without the fancy escutcheons!

From memory they carried the French a2p rating, and were offered alongside the euro rated Carina’s and Karat’s etc. they were finally discontinued when they introduced the ‘Complice’.

Great to see an old pre FB model like yours and it looks good condition too, got to be a good find that.
i bet you will also have fun pulling it apart if you haven’t already started on it! :-)

femurat

Hi Max,

thanks for the comment and info. I’m quite busy right now but I plan to disassemble the lock to see how it works. I’ll post pictures when I do it.

Cheers 🙂

femurat

So while I wait to have time to move it into the house and disassemble the lock, I went ahead and measured the safe. It’s 43 cm wide, 29 cm deep and 26 cm high. I put it on my bathroom scale and I thought it may break it! It didn’t. It was not easy to see the indicator but seemed between 60 and 65 kg.

Enjoy a few more pictures ;-)

billdeserthills

Much better pics on this forum:8):

Huw Eastwood

Looks great from the door shots- is the lower (bottom) locking bolt chamfered with a latch action?

That was a nice feature found on certain Bauche and Fichet models, yet another one that British makers never adopted!

In a commercial environment it’s actually a very useful feature to have. Fichet-Bauche continued it on certain models- even on relatively big cash safes like the Chatel and Enterprise until at least the late 1980’s.
extremely useful in busy cash handling offices where the safe is constantly being accessed and the full ‘lock up’ isn’t needed until close of day.

Often wondered who came up with the idea first!

femurat

Yes, the lower locking bolt has a latch action. It’s a useful feature.

My guess on why it didn’t spread is because it can cause a lockout. You know, many people store the second key inside the safe, and temporary put the key inside the safe while it’s open. If you accidentally close the door, you can no longer open it since all of your keys are inside the safe.

Cheers 🙂

Chubby

There should be a toast at every meeting of locksmiths to “The man who keeps his spare key in the safe. Long may he continue to do so”. They provide work for locksmiths throughout the land.

femurat

[video=youtube;sfX2aIC4MOY][/video]

Finally I had time to dig out the safe from the garage. Here I am dialling it open for the last time before disassembling it. Now the locks are on my work bench and the body is at a car body shop. I got quoted 250 euro to get it sanded, primed and painted medium grey.
I’ll disassemble and clean the locks myself, but decided to leave the paint job to a professional.

Cheers 🙂

Tom Gordon

Huw Eastwood wrote
That was a nice feature found on certain Bauche and Fichet models, yet another one that British makers never adopted!
Often wondered who came up with the idea first!

George Price had the models which were latch locking, where the lock was mounted in the frame and the handle too of course.

[unknown]

femurat

Today I sanded the heads of a couple machine screws. The previous owner forced them to open the lock cover and left some marks and deformed the slots. I sanded them with 1000 grit sandpaper and then polished the screw head. You can see the progress in the picture above. Untouched screw, sanded, polished a little, polished. Now I’m wondering if I need to get them chromed again. Do you think they’ll rust if I don’t chrome them?

Cheers 🙂

00247

Good job femurat! Now take a flat needle file and dress up the slot and the screw will be nearly perfect. With them prepped, it won’t cost much to have them plated in nickel or chrome and then they will stay shiny. Otherwise, they will rust unless you keep them well oiled. You could clear coat them but it will not be as durable as plating and may be damaged when tightening. I vote for plating. 🙁y):

femurat

I used a flat needle file to remove the burrs from the slot and then spent some more time with fine sandpaper to remove the file marks. Once I was satisfied I gave them a good buff. Now they look definitely better. By looking at the non threaded stem I think they were plated but I’m not sure.
Let’s see how good are the other parts of the lock once I clean them. If they’re good, I may keep the screws like this. I’ll apply some car body wax and use them like this. I can easily remove them and get them plated later, chrome or nichel. If something else needs to be plated, I’ll plate everything.

Cheers 🙂

femurat

So here is the safe, unaware of its destiny, patiently waiting for me in the garage for more than one year. I was a bit nervous but went ahead and started to disassemble it.
Unfortunately I still don’t know what was this safe original color. I was not able to find pictures of similar safes.
It seems that someone spray painted it green. Then someone else gave an artistic finish with silver and brownish colors over the green.

I took everything but the safe itself and brought it to my workbench. The old combo was 1952, probably the birth year of the previous owner. I’ve already changed it.

I’ll clean the boltwork parts with a rag. Then I’d like to apply a thick layer of car body wax. I like it more than oil and I hope that it will prevent them from rusting. Any suggestion?

Then I have to find the courage to disassemble the key lock and the combo lock. They scare me. I’m worried that I’ll never be able to reassemble them, since I have never seen anything like these before. But I’ll be brave and do it, some day.

I’m still waiting for the body shop call about the safe body being painted.

Cheers 🙂

Timothy

Nice jobs Femurat hoping to see more of it after complete the work…..Timothy…..

Chubby

It is a lovely unit and you are doing an excellent job of restoration.

From the point of view of design, though, I look at those 5 holes through the door and wonder what the level of security would be on a unit like that.

femurat

Thanks for the compliments guys. About the safe security, I don’t think these holes would give an easy access to the lock. The mechanism is protected by some steel plates and messing with it without knowing exactly what to do won’t make you open the safe. Punching the lock is the best method to break into these small safes, and the manufacturer knew it. In fact you see the door has an additional L shaped anchor point next to the lock bolt. This should provide additional strength to the 4 big bolts that keep the lock attached to the inside of the door. A quite secure safe for its time.

I started disassembling the lock to clean it and to see how it works. A small flat head screwdriver is all I needed.

Nothing to worry about till now. Then I started to be a bit worried but went ahead anyway. This is the lock core. It was quite easy to remove it from the lock assembly.

Now I expected flying springs but luckily they didn’t. The levers are under light spring pressure so I managed to keep them in place by simply wrapping my hand around the steel cover while I removed it. Then I immediately put them in a small plastic box with compartments because I didn’t want to loose any.

I’ve put a rubber band around the 8 levers to keep them up and show you the cuts. Keep in mind they’re upside down. Usually they can’t be pushed out because there’s the steel cup around the plug, and the springs keep them pushed towards the lock center.

Here is a video I made to show how the key interacts with the levers and how the plug and the lock plate work together.

[video=youtube;4lJilL4suSg][/video]

Here is the lock after I cleaned it with a toothbrush and some car body polish. Then I wiped it with a clean rag and a clean toothbrush. This lock isn’t damaged or rusted so I don’t think it needs more work.

I’m wondering if I need to apply some lithium grease to protect the steel surface of the lock. Since it rubs against the big cup that contains it, I think it’ll need some grease over there. Do I need to oil or grease the levers too? They’re in contact with brass that I’m not willing to oil or grease. As far as I know brass doesn’t need oil or grease.
Suggestions are welcome about this, because I’d like to reassemble the lock before going on with the restoration of other parts.

Cheers 🙂

Huw Eastwood

Have to say it’s looking great femurat, really good clear pictures too.

All I’d use in the cylinder is a small puff of dry graphite powder, it’ll work wonders once it’s worked in with the action of the key.

The heavier sliding parts of the boltwork will probably benefit from a light smear of Lithium grease here and there but keep it well away from the internals of the cylinder!

I’ve always loved those compact units from the French makers, looking forward to seeing it progress, keep the updates coming, cheers

Timothy

Nice job of all those picture you done. One question about the key. Are there any key blank for the lock and what the blank key number..??…Timothy……

femurat

The safe body has been painted and is sitting on my work bench. It looks very nicely done to me. It’s medium grey by Fiat number 653. I’ve been told its the colour of the old Fiat 500 Topolino.

I consider it my own Christmas present.

Timothy, dunno about key blanks, sorry.

Cheers 🙂