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Old August 1, 2013, 09:31 PM   #76
Pope94/IA
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Join Date: March 21, 2013
Location: Iowa
Posts: 34
My apologies for the very late response. I have been busy this summer with work and haven't had much time to get on the computer.

thump_rrr, I would be scared to even guess the hours that have gone into it. For several reasons; There was soo much time just involved in thinking.. so many hours spent trying to sleep but failing to do so because of my pondering mind. I was always thinking of different ideas. Alot of trial and error, mainly in the locking part. Also this was a school project, so I only had so many hours a day to work on it. Being a senior and filling my schedule with easy classes to finish off the year, I did have approximately 4.5 hours a day in the shop. Alot of which was taken up by doing my required lessons/welding tests/etc..
I can however give you a brief and extremely estimated list of certain things I did.
Frame of safe (measuring, cutting, welding): 4 hours.
Door frame (3-90 degree sides with a custom 45 degree angle): 3 hours.
Interior framing (drawers): 3 hours.
Welding the sheeting to the frame: 6 hours.
Constructing door locking mechanism (This would be an estimate if i actually knew what I was doing.. actual time was probably close to 30 hours in total after all my trial and errors): 8 hours.
constructing door handle: 4 hours.
Grinding/filing/sanding/polishing: FOREVER!!! Probably 35 hours. (alot of which was done at home on my own time. 90% of my grinding could have been avoided with the proper machining)
Sandblasting/Painting: 4 hours of labor. Several more hours of drying time of course.

Again those are all very very extreme estimates. If I made another one alot of that time would be cut down drastically. Of course there was alot of other smaller things that I left out.

Everyone asking about cost,
I should have kept track of my costs but I think I would have been scared to know the exact amount. Some of the materials (2" angle iron/portions of the paint bill/ other small materials items) were all donated from business and family friends (wonderful perks of our family trade) and the school.
Overall I think I had around 1300-1400 into materials. If we had used a cheaper paint like enamel verse a urethane + the automotive paint I probably would of only had 1000-1100 into it.

I've checked out some prices on gun safes and some are higher than what I put into it and some are lower and having made a safe that fits my own personal needs AND having the pleasure of building it myself. It was definitely worth the money and would love to do it again.

guggep,
The way I did it will work but I wish I would have done it differently. My original plan was to find a glue that could bond between durock and metal but I didn't find exactly what I wanted so to improvise I placed each piece in so they would all hold each other in firmly. I had layered it with two sheets. I wanted 1" total of durock well I could only find half inch so I just doubled it. The second layer I overlapped my previous cracks and then very carefully and patiently screwed the two pieces together. After the durock was carefully put into place I surrounded it with a thin piece of plywood to help with strength and to smash the durock between two solids pieces to help with future problems. I believed over time durock will split apart, or crumble.
There are so many ways I wish would have done it but I couldn't think of it at the time and its a little too late now. Haha.



Something else to add in; For those of you who ever have dreamt about making your own safe or are actually thinking about doing it.. You really don't need much for tooling. A guy can pretty much do everything with just a welder and plasma cutter/OR torch. Yes I had a mill, press, lathe, etc to help me but you can definetely get by without them! I did very little mill work on it. Lathe work was only in the handles which you can always design your own handles without a lathe or even have someone else make those for you. The only thing I used the press/notcher/whole punch for was to make a few jobs easier such as cutting holes, cutting my notches, cutting angle iron. All that can be done with a drill press/drill/or torch.

Ill honestly say I had NO idea what I was doing this whole project. Which just goes to show that anybody can do it if they have some of the necessary tools, patience, and a little will power to try different things.
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Last edited by Pope94/IA; August 1, 2013 at 09:45 PM.
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