Incombustible Bauche safe

Craig Sitch

Hi gang,
Total newbie here, recently we were gifted an old Bauche safe. It has no keys, and its not in the best condition, but we restore a lot of old things, so we would love to try and give this a go too.
Firstly, we would like to know as much about this sort of safe as possible, so we can then figure out a plan of how best to get into it. Googling came up with a few pictures of similar safes, but no dating. I’ve emailled Gunnebo, the company that now owns Fichet-Bauche, as well as a local locksmith, but I thought you folks would probably be more help. 🙂
Here are a couple of pictures of it.
Thanks in advance
Craig

Huw Eastwood

Beautiful safe Craig, if you search google for “Bauche coffre fort ancien”, and select images, you’ll see countless similar safes to give you an idea of what you are up against, there are some mechanism shots about too.

There are loads of variations on them, but they nearly always have the key operated latch action in addition to the main bolt work. If you are incredibly lucky in the unlikely event that it’s only locked on the latch, it can be opened relatively easily with a single strategic hole, which can then be plugged to repair.
If it’s not, and it’s fully locked on everything then it’s not really one for the inexperienced to practise on, you’ll end up doing major damage and that’d be a great shame on such a beautiful antique- it would also defeat the object of restoring it!

Craig Sitch

Thanks for your advice Huw.
Yesterday we opened the safe without damaging it or drilling it. Beginners luck maybe, yes it was locked 🙂
The first image was what we were greeted with when we opened the door.
The second is a day later after a lot of careful cleaning and some repainting. We have sorted out and repaired the small amount of damage to the key lock (caused by someone trying to force it years ago) and that is all working really well.
The problem we have is the combination lock. They are all turning fine, we can reset the combination either with a key or by partially dismantling the lock but the combination section does not prevent the door from opening no matter what we try. We really hope this is something simple we have missed. First time with a combination lock and all.

Thanks in advance
Craig

Huw Eastwood

Cor, and it was fully locked too! that’s a great job Craig well done!
Amazing that you managed to do all that, picking open a Bauche keylock and opening the 4 combinations without drilling or damage- sounds like we should all be asking you for help from now on!
Strange that you can’t see why the combo unit won’t lock the safe though, and you’re right on when you say you’re hoping it’s something simple that you’ve missed!

Gary Stephenson

It may have a part missing or have been removed to disable the combination lock. See the edited picture for where I think the blocking part should live.

Craig Sitch

I didn’t say we picked it.🙂 A bit more unorthodox than that. We were lucky.
We got the combination section working. There was a screw missing that allowed the main bolt to fall away rather than engaging this part of the mechanism. Really happy with how it is going now. Just the external work to do.

Craig Sitch

Gary Stephenson wrote
It may have a part missing or have been removed to disable the combination lock. See the edited picture for where I think the blocking part should live.

Thanks Garry. The missing screw went in the hole just to the left of were you indicated in the edited image. The section you marked is where the combination mechanism needs to be placed to select a new combination. With our safe this was done with a third key that goes through a slot in the plated that covers the lock and rotates around the peg directly below where you indicated in the image.

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