Fire Safes

[stevenf]

Bird
There were multiple mentions of looking at used fire safes and you have gotten a lot of great information from people that sound like they know a lot more about it than I but my father-in-law is a locksmith as is his oldest son and they both have given me older fire safes to use to store stuff in as even though they are not theft proof it keeps little fingers from getting into stuff like handguns and ammo. The reason they give me their older ones is many fire safes become less fire safe with years of use and they cannot resell them to people for fear they would try to use them for their original purpose. I can't tell you particular names but if you find a good looking used one your interested in post the name or pm me and I'll call and ask them if the particular one you find is apt to be unuseable for a fire safe based on age. This sounds silly but one of the ones they gave me was metal inside and out and the locking mechanism was acting up so my f.i.l. came over and helped me take it apart to fix it in the process of doing this we had to deskin the inside of the door and the internal insulation was indeed crumbling and falling out of the door when we diassembled it.
Steve

 

[Bird]

Thanks, Steve, but I wouldn't know where to find any used ones. I looked at eBay, but didn't see anything there of particular interest. Of course, 35 years ago, I saw quite a number of security safes that had been broken into. Some of the funniest burglaries I ever worked were cases in which burglars worked long and hard to break into safes that had important papers in them, but nothing of value to the burglars. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[mark777]

utah,

That was quite a curve ball you tossed out there. You can post in the Kubota forum or PM any individual you have specific questions for.

Good Luck, Mark

 

[mark777]

Bird,

At one time the Home Depot sold Sentry First Alert safes that faired pretty well. Knew of two separate house fires and two individuals that saved their contents (documents) but sorry to say I don't know how they were rated for plastics, etc.

Mark

 

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

Bird,

Your comment about stupid burglars brought back a memory from 20 years ago. We had a fire call for a van fire at a supermarket at 2 Am on a Sunday. Sure enough when we pulled up it was going good and started to extend into the store. We got the fire under control pretty quick. We then started to look at what was going on. It was a full size van parked next the front of the store in front of a plate glass window. A big safe was half in and out of the van on some steel runners. The burglars were smart but did not use heavy enough wire to the winch they had in the van to pull the safe out of the store. The wire overheated and started the van on fire. The store manager said the safe was empty, last pick up was before they closed on Sunday. I would have loved to hear the burglars when the fire started. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif They went through a lot of trouble for this job, they stole the van, set up a winch and a system to pull the safe out, all for nothing.

 

[higgy]

how often do you regenerate you desscant? It does not take long for it to become uneffective.

If you want methods for regeneration, let me know.

Dane

 

[dummy]

Thanks

 

[dummy]

Yea, that's part of the problem. It needs to be regenerated every 2 weeks and sometimes I forget. Since it is a storage area and not used daily or even weekly. The microwave is the quickest and easiest way we've found.

 

[Bird]

How do you know how long to put it in the microwave. I went ahead and bought the Sentry S3110 fire safe yesterday so I guess I'll need to regenerate mine periodically.

 

[dummy]

Just did some scientific analysis! (trial and error). Place it on paper towels and add high power in one minute intervals until the dessicant returns to it's original color. For mine, a 16 oz. cupful takes 2-3 minutes.