plastic/elastomer safes

Gary Stephenson

Chubb planet

Gary Stephenson

Research safe, assume this was a prototype when they were first experimenting with plastic bodies (don’t google that if the wife is looking 8-) )
it was just fitted with a simple boltwork.

Gary Stephenson

I assume this was a prototype or display model as it had 3 way brass plated boltwork and no glass plate or relocker

Gary Stephenson

The planet bodies normally have the cutouts for top and bottom bolts, but they were never fitted.

Gary Stephenson

I think there were also Lips Cennox and Metrowall vault doors, Europlanets in grades 2,3 & 4 and elastomer atms for Lloyds.

Cepasaccus

Gary Stephenson wrote
I assume this was a prototype or display model as it had 3 way brass plated boltwork and no glass plate or relocker

According to the previous product flyer the safe has been rated VDMA C2F. German C ratings were at that time the lowest level of tested safes. They were called first “steel cabinets”, later “value cabinets”, i.e. cabinets to protect valuable stuff. They can weigh from 300kg for smaller safes to 700 to 900kg for medium safes, but I have never seen one with a relocker and/or glass. They do have usually a bolt work where they ke lock is integrated. Sometimes there was usually a small Kromer combo lock added, which doesn’t have an integrated relocker. I have seen very few with only a combo lock, but I don’t know how they were constructed. So, for a C2F rated Chubb I do expect it to not have glass and/or relocker.

[unknown]

Redoubt

Great information Gary

Chubb UK were clearly very detailed with service/repair requirements for all their products, even supplying videos!

Im not sure if anyone knows, but didn’t Kaba make a range of safes with a similar plastic fill called Relastan?

Cepasaccus

Yes. I don’t know if they still do, but WALDIS, which is located next door in Rümlang, is currently selling modular vaults with Relastan.

Gary Stephenson

thanks never heard of the Relastan, with regard to the german rating, I don’t know, but the planets did have glass and a relocker fitted on the ones I saw out in the wild.

Cepasaccus

There is a WALDIS video on yt that shows an open Relastan sample.

Huw Eastwood

Thanks again Gary for starting this dedicated thread and posting all that info.

The aloxite they used surprised me- a fair bit courser than I thought at 10_16mm, the cracked hinge photos a corker and reveals all- looks pretty chunky in there.
Love the service sheet for plugging drilled holes- I must still be waiting for my 2.5kilo bag!

The choc brown prototype without glass or relocker is a real oddball, but thinking about it makes sense that there’d be all manner of variations tried in early stages for design trials and testing etc.
You’re certainly lucky to have seen and worked on so many specials. The brass looking boltwork is possibly (yellow) zinc passivate- you know the stuff that manufacturers use -fichet used it loads in 80s-90s Chatel’s, Valois etc- it looked a bit posh on their maroon or navy blue safes.

Btw would love to see any photos or info on the casting/injection process they used if you have any.
I built my own injection moulding machine and machined the moulds to make parts about fifteen years ago, so find the process very interesting. I’d imagine the attrition rate on tooling was horrendous if the mix was injected so it would make far more sense if the aloxite was dispersed and the polymer injected or cast around it -they only say ‘cast within moulds to very precise dimensions’ in the brochure, which leaves me guessing.

Cheers also to Redoubt for mentioning the Kaba Relastan and Cepasaccus the WALDIS range, both of which are also new to me. Got some catching up to do on those!

Huw Eastwood

Having had a look at the WALDIS site and seen their range of safes and vault doors, particularly the top-specced Premium safes and their Vaults for banks and safe deposit centres, the whole marketing concept seems odd to me.

It doesn’t seem to be marketed as previous similar products- ie, as a modern lightweight alternative aimed at limited space or limited floor loading applications.

Instead it’s marketed as the ultimate answer to everything safe and vault as barrier technology, saying their Premium safes are to the ‘maximum security standard’, and ‘it doesn’t get any safer’.
There are equally bold (if not bolder)claims for the top specced Relastan vaults for banks, and you leave the site thinking they are not only lightweight and removable, but superior to traditional basement vaults of cast in-situ reinforced concrete- ‘vaults for the highest class of insurance’.

The big stumbling block for me is that despite all the marketing talk, the top specced Premium range safe is only to Euro Grade V.
Come on guys! No grade VI to compete with everything from all the other manufacturers? If it’s that good I’d expect not only a grade VI but a grade VII to compete with the Atlas Eurovault…

Likewise, the top specced vault doors are apparently up to grade XI only, so yet again, no grade XII to compete with everyone else?
Despite all the Relastan vault hype the top spec door is a full 2 grades below Stacke’s grade XIII offerings!

Can’t help thinking there’s major missed opportunities there if Relastan really is as good as the marketing blurb suggests, but then seeing the low grades on offer probably holds the answer to why I’ve never heard of it.

Cepasaccus

For their prices I expect their grade V safes to fulfill the grade VII requirements. Smallest grade V (850×640×523, 540kg) with Paxos locks is 11800 CHF + taxes. Smallest grade III (800 × 620 × 520, 340kg) with one Primor lock is 6900 CHF + taxes.

Do you know who makes the Eurovault safes? The Aver up to grade V is Promet. The Eurovault images have ECB-S stickers on them, but ECB-S has no grade VII safe listet.

Gary Stephenson

They did seem all fur coat and no nickers to me, more about the glossy paint than the security. ‘Scared the safecracker’ made me laugh

Redoubt

From memory, Stockinger safes also use/used the plastic fill as well.

Going a little off topic, but related to grading the highest VDS graded safe was made made by Shanghai Golden Door. They made a grade 7 called the Bestguard VII. This was around 2012ish.

Just tried to go onto the VDS site but can’t drive it so I don’t know if they are still around.

Are VDS, and ECBS still the benchmark in Europe for testing?

Cepasaccus

Stockinger is doing AFAIK only the paint job and buys the security elsewhere from changing suppliers.

VdS and ECB-S are the label which sell best here in Germany. I think there is still a local tradition involved in the different European countries. France has a2p/Applus+, Spain AENOR. I think the Spanish have also their own flavor. Of course there are the cheap East European safes certified in East European labs which are at best never named in the sales info.

Huw Eastwood

Amazes me how many of those continental re-badged safes there are- ’brands’ that add all the superfluous fluff and their badge on the front.

Stockinger’s stuff still looks like 1990s Sistec Euroguard’s to me…..Hartmann look like Sistecs too, with the locks offset and not central….Döttlings another that falls perfectly into Gary’s trophy winning category- cheers again Gary, had a good laugh at that!!
In contrast some of the higher range stuff from Wertheim and Burg Wächter impressed me as their own production and often had unique features which set them apart. Didn’t see much high grade Burg though, mostly Wertheim’s.

@[deleted], Don’t know who makes the grade VII Atlas, was hoping Gary would know!
Pretty sure it was originally an exclusive for Burton’s but don’t know if that’s the case now- it arrived long after my dealings with them.
Used to see Norman Berry at events around the Uk and once had a very involved chat at the explosives testing at HSE in Buxton.
He was so impressed he asked if I could manufacture safes for him, unaware that everything we did was from a 25 × 10 foot workshop!! I was extremely flattered.

@[deleted], cheers for the Shanghai Golden Door -another new one to me, albeit sounds like a venue in the red light district. Might be worth adding it over on the ultimate safes thread.

Cepasaccus

In Germany we have the phrase “tarnen und täuschen”, which might be translated as the catchy phrase “mask and mock”. That is what most of the safe “manufacturers” do. In the UK Banham, Burton, London & Home Counties Safes and Phoenix sell Russian safes.

In older Stockingers there were labels with B021. I think this was Burg-Wächter, but it might have been Bössinger. SISTEC is O01x and S02x. Sadly a search at the VdS website does not return a certificate entry. Current Stockingers are AFAIK of Swiss origin, but not WALDIS. I don’t know a thing about these safes. Among the luxury safes Stockinger would be my preferred one security wise. Buben and Zörweg would be at the bottom end. On the outside so shiny, but on the inside all rotten. Appearance is probably much more important than security.

Explosives testing sounds awesome!

Huw Eastwood

I’ve not heard of London &Home Counties safes but the others you’ve mentioned in my view would all be classed as safe suppliers, and not really loosely as “manufacturers”.
Many make the claim themselves because they argue their stuff is unique to them, ie; made exclusively to their spec, but simply by definition most don’t manufacture it directly themselves.
Banham’s are a long established and respected London company known for their unique door locks and associated services, but not for safes. Seeing the safes they‘re now offering it’s clear they’re strategically using their market position for a slice of the pie, aiming primarily at their wealthy London clients, by offering similar re-badged imported gloss like the Stockinger and döttling stuff, as they are already uniquely positioned to sell it.

I was smp engineer for many years and back then they manufactured everything at the Halesfield factory, even the aluramic barrier castings were poured in the foundry in the works. The only exception were the special concretes which were poured by a specialist company half a mile down the road.
In later years they also farmed out turned and machined parts like spindles, hinges and key-guides as it became cheaper to get them cnc’d.
It was fantastic to see a euro grade v or a top spec bankers start as flat steel plates and see through all the stages to finished product. The bankers had glass plates and relockers on 4 sides around the entire boltcase. Not many true manufacturers like that left now and a world apart from the re-badged imports that’s sadly now become the norm.

safeman

Huw Eastwood wrote
I
Banham’s are a long established and respected London company known for their unique door locks and associated services, but not for safes. Seeing the safes they‘re now offering it’s clear they’re strategically using their market position for a slice of the pie, aiming primarily at their wealthy London clients, by offering similar re-badged imported gloss like the Stockinger and döttling stuff, as they are already uniquely positioned to sell it.

The burglaries happened over December 2019 and culminated with a massive heist at the Ecclestones’ mansion in Palace Green, Kensington, which happened while the couple were holidaying in Lapland with their daughter and dog.
Hundreds of items of jewellery, cash, diamonds and precious stones worth £25 million were taken from the 2,000 square foot property, which is spread over six floors, in what is believed to have been the country’s biggest ever domestic burglary.
In earlier raids, the gang also made off with around £60,000 in watches and jewellery stolen from the Lampards’ home while they were out of the Chelsea property on Dec 1.
On Dec 10, the gang targeted Mr Srivaddhanaprabha’s Knightsbridge home, which had been turned into a shrine by his family following his death, aged 60, in a helicopter crash shortly after take-off from Leicester’s King Power Stadium in 2018.
Among more than £1 million in property stolen was a TAG Heuer watch Mr Srivaddhanaprabha was wearing before he left for Leicester that day, which was recovered as one of the defendants was wearing it when arrested.

Designer safes in above burglaries.

What has the High Street Safe Business descended to? Not even shovel proof.

[unknown]