Good luck, and definitely keep us posted. That thing is cool!

If you need to sand a curved surface, wrap the sand paper around a dowel or something round.

You could also try using balled up aluminum foil to rub the surfaces. It'll act like a clay bar does on paint.

Laser rust removal would work! Cost or availability? ... Who knows?

Nothing to add, sorry, but what a terrific project - I can’t wait to see how this turns out.

Hi all, Made a good progress on this beast. I took some of the ideas here and here is the result.

I used the razor blade method to remove the surface rust. Didn't ever try this before but this portion for cleaning worked. The machined surface was harder than the blade and the blistered oxidized surface was softer. Scrapped it until no resistance was felt and sounded smoother.

Than I made up paper towels folded to about 1 3/4 wide soaked them in 5% white vinegar and held them on the surface with magnets. The vinegar/towel patch stayed on for 2 hours and turned the surface black. Next treatment was a steel wool and WD40 scrub which cleaned up the surface to a dull steel color.

Final was a WD40 wet sand with first 320 grit and followed up with 600. Came out good but the pock marks which are very minor still are slightly darker than the rest of the surface. Followed with a light coat of sewing machine oil.

When I first tried to rotate the door it never did, After the razor blade it rotated about an inch, after the polishing it finally rotated to the fully closed position.

The other process was to separate the door from the hinge (250# +/-) to clean the old 84 year old grease and give it a fresh lube. The tolerances are so tight that when I used regular chaulk to check for any rub points the chaulk actually filled the gap enough that I needed to really put some pressure on the handle to rotate back open.

I decided to keep the patina finish on the exterior and gloss white the interior as it was so dark in the original dark green color.

I still need to paint the lug area of the door silver and refurbish the combination lock.

Thank you all for the suggestions.

Sawyer

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Great job. Glad that you got it licked. Thanks for updating us.

I'll give you $20 for the safe if you can ship it for less than $50! :D ;)

I'll stick a Forever Stamp on it drop it off and when you receive it the Post Office will expect you to make up the difference.

It is just under 1600# but the over 12 inch package might be the upcharge issue.

Curious...what did you use for the pivot lube? I'd have suggested superlube...same synthetic grease that snap-on uses in ratchets.

I tested 3 different greases, Valvolene wheel bearing, Magnalube and a white colored teflon based grease with no label.

Hillbilly testing was hot (warm oven), cold (fridge) and dirt (saw dust) Just to see what stayed in place and didn't get too thich when cold. The white teflon grease held up the best so that is what I used on the rotating door.

The door hinges and handle have oil cups, the type with a spring loaded center. I first used Kroil, than flushed with WD40 until it was seeping out less rusty color and than white lithium.

The machined surface I used sewing machine oil as I figured it would not gum up and attract dust. There are many cases of these safes not opening due to oil drying up.

If I had some 0 weight auto oil I might have tried that but in either case I'm not sure what happens in time that might glue the door in place. The door ramps it self in such tight tolerances to prevent any liquid making its way inside it really creates a metal to metal seal.

Yearly maintenance as per the tag on the door will be followed at minimum. Or if during use I feel a bit more drag it will be done than.

Sawyer

This?

https://www.super-lube.com/silicone-lubricating-brake-grease-with-syncolon

About $8-16k+ for non professional. Dang.

Yep. Good stuff. Some months ago, I cleaned & then relubed all my old Craftsperson and New Britian ratchets with it. Really smoothed them up.

Also not to mention if I tried that I wouldn't have anything left to secure in it.

pwd72s I looked closer at the deteriorated label on the container and I can barely make out Permatex and Teflon. It is a white almost Vaseline viscosity and it seem to be the least thick of my off the shelf stock.

Sawyer