Posted: 3/29/2003 11:47:03 PM EDT
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The main question I have is what kind of locking system should I use? I would like something more than a pad lock. Any ideas? What thickness steel would you use for the walls and what size of square steel tubing would you use for the frame? Any ideas on fire proofing? Is there some type of fire proof or fire resistant sheeting that can be put in the walls? Any other ideas appreciated also. Thanks |
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yup, (because i have NO place to put a comercial gun safe). i took my utility closet (2.5' wide x 5' deep), reiforced/added studs to the inside finished it off with .75" plywood on all sides. the original door was replaced with a professionally ancered steel frame & custom comercial steel door with a kick ass dead bolt. its flush with the wall. people that come in my house walk by it about 5 times before they finally notice it & get curious. while it's not as secure as a real 'gun' safe, it's pretty effective. if you can covert a closet with some $ to put into it, you'll have somethin kick ass & low profile. but if you have the room & $ for a real safe, GET ONE. |
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I haven't built one myself, but I've seen several ones that my customers have built. Typically, they build a strong room, like with concrete block walls filled with reinforced concrete, and buy a safe door that's prehung in a frame. They mount the frame to the over-sized closet, then drop the door in place. It's dead-easy. As to how much the prehung safe doors cost, I have no idea. I do know that in a couple of cases, the doors were bought from a local locksmith. For home use, a closet with a solid wood door in a metal frame with two good deadbolts (one near the top and one near the bottom) would probably be good enough. Just make sure you use "security hinges." I assume the door will swing outward, because if it swings inward, it will prevent you from using a large portion of the interior space. Since the hinge pins will be on the outside, the security hinges have pins in them that stick-out into the door frame to prevent the door from being removed even if you take the hinge pins out. If you can't find those type of hinges, you can always add an extra dead-bolt on the hinge-side of the door. For fire proofing, an extra layer of sheetrock on the walls and on the back of the door will help more than many so called "fire-proof" safes will. To make the safe/closet more resistant to attacks from saws, adding chicken wire between the layers of sheetrock will help. For a little more money, you can use "wonderboard" (the concrete backer boards you use behind tile) rather than sheetrock on the inside. A friend dumped a mix of gravel and dull carbide drill bits, he bought by the pound from a local machine shop, in between the studs in his wall. One customer of mine has plexiglass between the layers of fireproofing material in their safe. The consultant they hired recommended it, because it is supposed to gum-up drill bits or saw blades when it melts from the friction. I haven't seen this, and it seems like a bit of a fire hazard, but I've read that some bank safes have a layer of tar in them to gum-up drills. I drilled through the roof of our building a few months ago, and the six inches of tar I was drilling through turned the simple job into a three hour pain in the neck. Also, I've read that banks safes sometimes have string in the tar to "grab" drill bits.z |
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