Gun Safe Refurb Part 1 – Exterior

Posted by Lonely Raven on May 5, 2012 in Lonely Raven | Comments Off on Gun Safe Refurb Part 1 – Exterior

Ok, some of us can’t afford to drop a few grand on a new gun safe, some of us are just cheap…I guess I’m a little bit of both. 🙂 I found a goodly sized gun safe on Craigs List that I literally traded my old computer for. This is Part 1 of a multi-part Gun Safe Refurb. In later parts I’ll show the digital lock I installed, custom interior I’m designing and building, and the lighting feature for this safe. But for now, let’s see how this project is progressing, shall we?

So I finally purchased a house with a decent sized basement, I figured it was time to find a gun safe to safely store my quickly growing collection of firearms. Every time I go to the local shops to pick up reloading supplies, I’d always meander through the maze of safes and had a good idea of what I wanted. I just didn’t have $3k for it! So I hit the usual suspects, forums, eBay, and Craigs List. As luck would have it, a gentleman not too far from me posted a “come and get it” ad saying he had this old gun safe that came with the house he just moved into, and he wanted it out…he also wanted a computer. Working IT for a living and I happen to be looking for a gun safe; clearly the Gods must be pleased with my offerings of lead and electrons. The photos in the ad were small, and looked just like this:

 

I’ll not bore you with the story of me pushing a 550lb safe up a flight of stairs and the hernia that resulted. Nor how I fit a 22 gun safe in my little Scion XB and the rear window getting knocked out while driving over railroad tracks. But I will say that I was pleased with the trade, at the cost of an old computer, some torn muscles, and a new rear window on the car. So far this cost me about $180 for the new rear window (the computer was “retired” so really had no value to me).

 

I was nonplussed with the combination lock…having a terrible memory and the tedium of 4 turns to the right, 3 turns to the left, 2 turns to the right BS, got me started on looking for a digital lock. Add to that, if you look at the first photo, WTF was the previous owner thinking, putting stick on insulation strip on the *outside* of the door? I can only imagine the old guy that owned the house and the safe, previously had heard that using insulation strip on the door would help him maintain a more consistent humidity…I mean, the safe did have two large desiccant  cans inside (bonus!), so I can only guess he was a little confused as to where the insulation strip should have gone.  The grey shag carpeting in the safe tells you how old this thing is. LOL

First things first, lets clean up this door. This insulation on the *outside* has to go, and I’m not a fan of name brands emblazoned on the things I own…no offence to Browning, just not my thing. Unfortunately, the adhesive on the weather strip did a good job of soaking into the textured paint/powdercoat on the door, so peeling and shaving it away with a razor left me with bare metal.

 

Not a pretty sight, but hopefully some sanding and the tried and true Rustoleum Hammer Tone will fix this up.

 

 

Fast Forward a bit, after lots of sanding with the random orbital and some 80 grit.

 

 

Ready for paint, or so I thought:

 

It turns out, hammer tone finish wasn’t enough to cover up the hard edged transition between the factory finish and the adhesive damaged finish I stripped away. So I came up with another clever idea, and ran out to the local hardware store and picked up a  stone texture type finish which would cover up the rough looking door. This gave me a great base coat to put the hammer tone finish on and finally started looking like I might know what I was doing.

 

 

To be Continued: Part 2 Changing out the Lock

 

 

 

 

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