h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I found this http://public.fotki.com/h2g2Waz/for-sharing-with-friends/blokeintheroad/p1050748.html this morning.

I want in!

It's built into the wall inside a hollow brick bench in the fireplace. The OH has lived here for over 15 years and never noticed it!

The key turns very easily and you can hear the lock opening/closing but the door won't budge. Huge quantities of WD40 have been sprayed around the edges of the door and a thin piece of metal will now go through almost all the way across the top, some of the left side and a couple of places on the bottom. It would help to be sure which way to turn the key to unlock and to know how the lock and hinges work.

Tried googling to find something similar but no luck.

Any ideas?

The OH says Lord Lucan's in there . One large and of course cursed emerald's what I reckon.

There's few problems in life that can't be solved by just the right amount of explosives.

All Ebay's got in that line is stuff called Dynamite Baits Boilies - all flavours and sizes and fluro pop up ones mind. And dynamite sticks made of lego - who knew?!

Oooh, that's intriguing

Possibly it's rusted inside, and the lock itself may be damaged such that the latch parts are not releasing.

You could try heating the edges with a propane torch, and then forcefully tapping all the way 'round the seam with a hammer.

Wear goggles and gloves, and be aware that wd-40 will likely ignite at some point, so have some damp cloths and perhaps a fire extinguisher handy

Let us know what you find

It'll probably have papers in it, so be careful with heat/explosives. Angle grinder?

TRiG.

Just remember, you're only supposed to blow the bloody door off. Or alternatively, use thermite.

Is it mounted in an outside wall?
It could have been a locking coal-chute - to prevent entry.

Is there any possible entry/exit point anywhere outside, or
next door, or on another floor?

Was the front also covered in brickwork or boarded over?
I'm assuming the broken wood in front was part of some cover.

Is it possible to remove the entire unit from the brickwork?
I suspect the side and back walls will be of a thinner gauge
than the door and may be easier to cut into. I would remove it
entirely and work on it in a safer environment.

~jwf~

First off - I doubt it's a safe... The fact that you can slide a piece of metal between the door and frame at all rules that one out... Safes are designed with doors specifically to prevent that (to stop you forcing the door with a crowbar)

I'd agree with the other posters though - attack it from the rear.... What's on the other side of the wall it's mounted in?

A friend of mine discovered a hidden cupboard like this recently - when he prised the panel off, out tumbled a twenty year old stash of pornography!

But alternatively it could contain the missing play of Shakespeare, or some Dead Sea scrolls, or Shergar or...

Definitely worth persevering.

sprout

Proper oxyacetylene cutting gear will be through that in minutes.

Alternatively, a good diamond tipped drill could perforate that door in an hour or two.

#1 £££It's built into the wall inside a hollow brick bench in the fireplace.£££

Where does the hollow brick bench go and what was its purpose?

It looks like it may be just an access hatch for cleaning the flue.

How unromantic of you! But, on looking again, you may well be right.

TRiG.

Are we in a movie? Then, it may well contain instructions to find a copy of all books which were thought to be lost in the fire at the Library of Alexandria.

Of course, you will find them just before these priceless copies get again destroyed in a dramatic fire cause by your jealous rival during an epic fight held, for unfathomable reasons, in the library, near gas canisters, and while holding torches.

I sense that the stashed treasure theorem is slowly going up in smoke.

Ban toybox from this thread. He´s probably concocting a mathematical way to prove the safe has never been there.

An engineer and a mathematician are locked in a room for a day with a can of food but without an opener.

At the end of the day, the engineer is sitting on the floor of his room and eating from the open can: she threw it against the walls until it cracked open.

In the mathematician's room, the can is still closed but the mathematician has disappeared. There are strange noises coming from inside the can... When it is opened and the mathematician crawls out. "Damn! I got a sign wrong."

In the facade of my house,as in the rest of the houses in my village, there´s something similar. It´s also incrustrated in the wall. It´s smaller. Inside there´s a water-meter (I don´t think you use that in your wet lands)

Could it be a box that contains a gas-meter? Are there any old pipes for that use in the house?

I'm perservering but not much time to spend on it yesterday or today. Did a bit more WD 40 spraying and prodding with what I'm told is a 0.20 spark plug feeler guage. Though there is a loose half-brick against what presumably is the side of this safe/box/cupboard and I've been working at the mortar round that. Got the brick about an inch out.

Knowing WD40 might ignite could be useful!

If it goes more than three inches deep then it's inset into what used to be an outside wall but would now be the back of the hall cupboard - so a coal chute is possible but why lock the inner door? And it seems a bit low to the floor to deliver much coal before damming itself. (~jwf~ the sticks are our morning sticks.)

It's a big fireplace - as in you could get a Dickensian family sitting in it on the brick benches, three each side of the fire, facing one another. I don't know what the brick benches were originally for. You can sit on them, but you get burned knees. They're on the small side for coal or logs and a bit damp inside for general storage.

Flue access and gas meter cupboards are unlikely as the chimney opens overhead and there's no gas supply pipe for at least two miles. Some other kind of meter might be possible, but why lock it on an inside door?

There's a neighbour who might have better safe-breaking/demolition equipment who we might be calling on ...