All,
Been continuing work on the locker. Added some additional steel inside the boxes behind the hinge to reduce the chances of the doors getting bashed in on the hinge side. When the doors are closed the angle iron welded to the door is sandwiched between another piece of angle iron welded to the inside side of the lockers and the 3/4" bar welded behind the face frame. I took a hinge pin out of one of the doors to test, pretty sturdy. Again, since it is going in a TL rated safe, it is more for my peace of mind and just for the hell of it then really being necessary. My welding isn't the best, so there was a lot of grinding to be done, finally done. Most of it was welded with .035 flux core wire as it runs a bit hotter than solid wire with welding gas. My 140A welder is a little on the small side for some of the steel involved with this project. Anyone that has worked with flux core knows it makes a mess and splatters pretty heavily. Some of the welds on the inside of the safe were done with .025 solid wire and gas, and those welds came out great, but I only did that to keep some of the mess down inside of the safe as overall they wern't giving me adequate penetration for the 3/16" stock. The flux-core handled the 3/16" fine, but makes one heck of a mess and requires a lot of extra time with the grinder and flap wheel. Time for a bigger welder I guess, but I would rather spend the $$$ on a FNAR.
I also tapped the 8-32 holes on the front of the door to take the dials. I have a bunch of scrap locks of various types, so I tested it with a 6870 key lock, a 6700 group II, and a 6120 electronic. Operation verified with all 3. Got it primed today...I brushed the paint on since I don't have a great place to spray in the winter. Finish won't be as nice, but with all my projects this is function over form. The finish coat is an oil based satin in a cream color. You may notice the upper right door only has 3 1/4" holes tapped to mount locks...well, that is a long story, but lets just say that one tap died in the process, and I had to weld over it. I could have gotten it out, but many electronic locks, and some key-op locks only have 3 mounting holes anyways, so I decided it wasn't a big enough deal to grind off the 1/2" lock mounting plate and redo.
I also got the frame built that this thing will sit on in the safe. The frame will be bolted to the side wall of the interior of the safe, and the locker will be bolted to the frame. The bolts will all get tack welded to keep them from being easily removed. I went with this approach vs welding the locker into the safe so that it could be removed by me, with some effort, in the future if desired.
Also putting a couple shots of the safe it is going in. The safe is being painted with a cream colored latex paint. This pic was taken right after washing the inside with TSP. Next step on that is priming it with some Kilz primer, and followed up with 2 top coats of the latex. I did this finish on the inside of my other safe and it came out pretty good. Exterior is staying the flat 2-tone gray. Interior carpet on the shelves and back wall will be a medium camel colored automotive carpet...again, same as I did on my other safe. So far I have replaced the chrome dial on the primary lock (a Group I) with a black dial, and replaced the 6870 FAS key lock with a D-drive electronic. The electronic lock stays unlocked most of the time unless I am day locking the safe. I also drilled a hole through the back of the safe to run power in. I don't have a fancy drill rig, so that took some time and a special drill bit.