safecracker at large

How do I even know that the person who hires me to open a safe actually owns it? This is most worrisome when it involves residential calls I get at night. For Instance: A caller from a residence needs to have a safe in a home opened, and right away. I never know if the caller actually owns the safe or if Aunt Mary's crackhead nephew is taking advantage of the fact that Aunt Mary is traveling, or in the hospital, or whatever. After all, it's work, and we all need to work. And work of the of the service-to-your door genre commands higher fees in almost any night, weekend, or holiday situation. So of course I'm interested. Typically I ask a lot more questions of residential safe owners on night work than I might in the daytime: What's the matter with it? Do you know the combination numbers? Is it one that you open on a regular basis? When was the last time it opened successfully? Are you sure you're entering the combination correctly? What is the maker...

This is a response to one of the questions in the readers' comments regarding where to learn to do the type of work I do. I'll just outline the path I took. You could call safe and vault work a locksmith specialty, though many safe and vault companies and their employees don't do any locksmith work per se . I began as a general commercial locksmith, which is a common path to becoming a safe and vault specialist. After a couple of entry-level jobs I went to a (now-defunct) school devoted to the locksmith trade. It was The New York School of Locksmithing, and it used to be in Hempstead, on Long Island. One apprentice job and one geographic move after the school I was lucky enough to get hired by a locksmith who specialized in safes. Safe techs most often learn their work by doing. If they're lucky it's under the tutelage of one or more experienced competent technicians. The man who first taught me was very knowledgeable. Though I didn't realize then, he us...

Safe Lock Problems Electronic/Digital Safe Locks At least once a week, but usually more often, someone calls and tells me their safe's push-button combination lock won't open when they enter the combination. When asked, they're positive they have the correct combination. The Most Common Solution: Try a new battery first (or batteries, if your lock uses more than one). The best and perhaps most easily available batteries for electronic safe locks will be Eveready Energizers or Duracell. Other battery brands might be just fine for plenty of other battery-powered items, but trust me on this, in a safe lock you want to use either the Energizer or Duracell brands. Did I say "new" battery? I'm pretty sure I did. Don't be a dummy, okay? Quite often after telling a caller to try a new battery they call back and report that a new battery didn't do the trick, can I please hurry over and get their safe open? When I arrive, it often turns out that...