Safebusters & John Tann Safe

Safebusters were called out to an elegant, vintage John Tann safe. The owner had the keys—but frustratingly, the door refused to budge.

First, we drilled a small 6 mm probe hole and slid in an endoscope to check the boltwork. Everything looked to be retracting correctly on the inside. We tried pulling the door repeatedly—shoulder to the steel—but still nothing. Cue plenty of puzzled glances, shoulder shrugs, and head-scratching.

Then I caught sight of a forklift passing by—this was at a builders’ merchant, after all. With a bit of friendly persuasion, we got the forklift driver to apply a gentle tug. It took a monumental push, but finally—click!—the door sprang open, much to my immense relief.

Inside, we discovered the culprit: the door had sagged by about 2 mm, and a tiny scrap of paper—no larger than a postage stamp—had jammed the bottom, blocking the boltwork.

As they say, every day’s a school day!

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.

SMP Safe

We received an emergency call on a Sunday morning from a frantic jeweller based in Kent. He had lost the keys to a high grade SMP safe, and was beside himself with worry as he had stored a local family's Christening silver in the safe for, ironically, ‘safe keeping’. The Christening was that afternoon, so after speaking to our engineer, Will was on his way. Bearing in mind this was a more than decent safe, with glass protection, so drilling wasn't an option. The only thing for it would be to pick the high grade lock open. Will managed to get the job done within an hour, the lock was picked and the safe door opened and there it was in all its glory - the silver gifts! They were rushed to a very relieved mum and dad just in time for the Christening. The jeweller himself was beyond happy and had the biggest smile on his face We had never seen anyone that overjoyed to pay the bill!

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!

Vault Door

Recovering a lost combination on a substantial book room/ vault door. The door hadn’t been in use for many years but once opened and put back into service they can expect many more trouble free years of use out of a superbly engineered Chubb vault door.