Chubb Grade One Safe-Safebusters.co.uk

🔐 Lost Keys for a Chubb Grade One Safe Near Embankment? Picking Saves the Day!

Recently, an existing client near Embankment reached out after losing the keys to his beloved Chubb Grade One safe. These safes are notoriously drill-resistant, making non-destructive entry via picking the ideal route.

🛠️ Why Chubb Grade One is Hard to Drill

Chubb Grade One safes are engineered to resist drilling, explosives, thermal cutting, and grinding. They're built with hardened steel, composite hardplates, and internal relockers designed specifically to frustrate forced entry attempt.

🧠 Picking: The Preferred, Non-Destructive Entry

Rather than drill—which would risk triggering relockers and cause unnecessary damage—choosing to pick the safe preserves its integrity. Safe pioneer practices and modern expert consensus agree: for high-security safes, lock manipulation is the least destructive  www.safebusters.co.uk.

🔓After too many hours of delicate manipulation—and admittedly, one slightly grumpy safe man (will @ Safebusters)—the Grade One lock finally surrendered.

🔑 Rekeying and Happy Customer

With successful entry achieved, we replaced the old lock and provided new keys. The safe was fully restored to perfect working order, avoiding costly replacement. Outcome: one very happy customer...and one slightly grumpy but proud engineer! Safebusters were happy to help

😅 Lesson Learned: Practice Makes Perfect

This job reminded me: use it or lose it! Safe picking is a fine skill that requires regular practice—getting rusty on those techniques makes even expert engineers frustrated. As I found out firsthand today 😁

Chubb Lemington Safe-Safebusters.co.uk

This Chubb Lemington safe in Holland Park West London, was opened, the code recovered and put back into service -

A skilled safe engineer can often pick and rekey your safe, restoring access cleanly, affordably, and without harm.

Chubb Book Room Door Safe

Here I hand cut a key for an old circa 1900’s Chubb Book Room Door safe, as the builders had lost both keys. Under normal circumstances, making a key by hand would take approximately two hours, but in this case the door pan had to come off.  With the help of my fellow safe engineer, Dave Kneafsey, we numbered all the handmade bolts, as its important that they go back in the same order. We then proceeded to remove the door pan - being careful not to damage the marble tiles - to reveal the old hand made Chubb 7 lever lock. Obviously this old safe, and all its parts are no longer being made, so we were not able to simply replace the lock. 

A master key was hand-crafted lever by lever, bit by bit. Once the master key was finished, I was then able to cut another key by machine. The keys were tested, and all working nicely, so we were finally able to refit the door pan. After about an hour or so the pan was back on, all the bolts in the correct order and working just as it should do. As you can imagine, this was an expensive lost keys moment so be careful when handing keys out to anyone!

German Stuv Safe

We were called to this German Stuv document safe in the financial heart of the city. After an office move, the key had been lost with no spares. By all accounts the contents of the safe included some very valuable and important documents that were needed asap.

We arrived on site and scoped the lock out to find it was exactly as described- a German Stuv lock - sometimes these are changed for other locks so you can never be 100% sure. We managed to pick it open, therefore, not compromising the integrity of the cabinet. We replace with a new lock and set of keys, much to the relief of the Facilities Manager.

Phoenix Safe

This little Phoenix safe was picked open so that no damage was done to the safe. These Phoenix safes are durable, reliable and suitable for homes protecting your goods for many trouble free years. However, we do not recommend them for high end valuables due to insurance ratings, we suggest they make the perfect starter home safe!

Mystery Safe

This lovely old circa 1880-1890’s key safe was built into a wall in a lovely old house in Oxford, OX postcode. This was not your conventional wall safe, but hand built into the wall with excellent workmanship - sadly lacking in today’s profit before workmanship criteria.

This safe was interesting as obviously (to me) it had been worked on before, and had a different brass plate and escutcheon than when it left the workshop. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it had been fitted with a 1980’s seven lever safe lock. The lock was picked open and the combination changed, so the lost key wouldn’t work if found by anyone, and two new keys cut on site.

After speaking to the owner, it was discovered that in the 80’s she had hired someone - who she described as a right old character - to open the safe (again due to a lost key). He had come and opened and changed the lock for her, after assuring her he was ‘the best safe cracker in the country, and could open any lock’. She remembered that his name was Terry, and after further probing we discovered it was in fact, Terry Stadden. The legend. I had the honour of being trained by Terry in the 90’s, and anyone in the safe and locksmithing world will know the Stadden name. He is responsible for reviving lock picking in the 70’s as it was becoming a ‘lost art’. Working on this particular safe, after master Terry, felt like a right of passage and I was very happy to use his teachings to continue on his work and follow in his footsteps. Clearing up the mystery of the non-standard brass fittings and parts used from different era safes.

SMP Safe

This SMP (secure mechanical products) Salopian combination was located in the KT postcode area, Surrey. The customer had recently moved into a new house and found this safe on arrival. Unfortunately, he had no idea of the combination and was unable to get any information from the previous owners. After a quick call to Safebusters, our engineer was able to manipulate the combination open and reset a new combination of the customers choosing.

Withers Brothers Safe

Withers Brothers safes date back from the late 1800’s, extremely popular safe then and currently, renowned for their build quality.

This safe was opened, two new keys were cut for the lock and put back into full service. No need to replace the safe after entry for a happy customer in Stevenage.

Milners Safe

The Milners safe originates from the 1830s, a British family run company, known for their beautiful, fire-proof designs.

This safe was opened with no damage, with a new set of keys cut for yet another satisfied customer.

John Tann Safe

John Tann safes are popular with banks and bankers for their size and added security.

This indirect dial was opened and put back into service.