Opening a TL-30 Cash Safe in a Hotel in Dallas, TX

This is a perfect example of locksmiths who are not experienced safe technicians, trying to open a high security safe, with no experience or knowledge of the safe internals, or of the lock keeping it closed!

If somebody tries or tells you they need to do any of these things, to open your safe for you.. SEND THEM AWAY immediately! :

Cut the hinges
Cut a large hole in the door or safe body (bigger than your thumb)
Pry it open
Use any type of saw, grinder or cutting torch

We completed a safe opening job in Dallas, TX. In this case, the customer (a 4 Star Hotel) needed help opening a high security TL-30 rated Cinci cash safe that the lock had malfunctioned, and two other locksmith companies had already tried to open it, but unsuccessfully.

NOTE: This safe could have been professionally opened, by making a single properly placed 1/4″ hole, then install a new lock, fill the hole, and this safe would have been good as new.

Details of This Safe Opening

The first company drilled several holes in the door and one in the side, but never made a single one penetrate through the hard plate, and none of them were drilled in the correct place anyway!

The locksmith then decided to cut the hinge pins and even cut a small section of the door near the top hinge presumably thinking he could pry the door open. This is surprising because even the cheapest safe you can buy, interlocks on the hinge side when the door is closed, eliminating any possibility of easily prying doors open. It would be impossible to pry this particular door open anyway. The first locksmith finally left after destroying this safe beyond repair.

The second locksmith company arrived and was there for hours and used up all of their drill bits and finally welded the last one they had, (in the correctly placed hole) and broke it off in the hole.

The Safe Pros showed up and drilled through that broken drill bit, then on through the hard plate, and into the lock to finally unlock it approximately 15 minutes later. Unbeknownst to us at the time, the hinges had been cut, we turned the handle while sitting on the floor in front of the safe, and the door came out a little bit and immediately fell on to the left door frame of the safe. Luckily it did that and didn’t fall forward instead, as the door weighed about 600 pounds and our safe technician would have been crushed by that heavy door!

We then very carefully (and with great effort) moved the door out to about 45 degrees and while balancing it there because the bottom hinge pin was still holding on but just barely, we had to keep the door balanced and try to lift the hinge side off what was remaining of the bottom hinge pin, at the same time. Finally we got the door separated from the safe body after the third lifting attempt and maneuvered it over to lean it against the wall so it didn’t fall on anybody.

We did highly recommend to the hotel staff that they make the guy who cut the hinges and the door.. buy them a new safe!