Safe, vault and home security people have a tendency to want to best. This is very natural and even fun as these dreams of perfection often lead to incredible home safe creations that are always pushing the limits through technological advancements and innovations. After a lot of time researching home safes and vaults I thought it would be interesting to put together my ultimate safe in theory. The trick here lies in the details so from the very type of steel used to construct the walls to the intricacies of the security system. This is my ultimate safe. How would you build yours?
The Basics
My ultimate safe without a doubt would be a custom built floor safe. Floor safes get bonus points in my book for being both concealed as well as nearly impossible to remove in a timely and covert manner when encased in concrete. There is a slight inconvenience for quick access but that’s well worth the extra security in my opinion. I would opt for a shallow design with a depth of only 8-10 inches and an interior space of about two cubic feet. My safe would of course be concealed beneath a camouflage trap door.
The Build
As for the construction of my safe I am a bit torn between maraging steel and a nickel based superalloy for the construction of my ultimate safe. Maraging steel, on the one hand, is known for an extreme tensile strength which would be beneficial against prying attacks. However, a nickel based superalloy is known for retaining its strength even when exposed to extreme heat which would be beneficial against torch attacks. I think I would opt for the nickel superalloy and rely on thick walls to deter prying and brute force attacks. To my knowledge these materials have never been used for safe construction so hopefully it’s only the price that restricts these super metals to jet engines and spacecraft and there’s not some obvious weakness I am overlooking
Security
As for security I would opt for ½ inch thick walls and a ? inch thick door with internal hinges. As previously mentioned my safe would be encased in half a foot of concrete on all sides so I could forgo anchoring and will even help with fire protection. I would go for glass plate relockers to deter against weak point drilling. Since my safe is already encased in concrete I am mostly only worried about a frontal attack through the door. As for the locking mechanism I think I would stick to the tried and true old school combination lock with a 6 digit combination and a reduced tolerance. Finally I would hook up an alarm to the glass plate relockers that will alert me in the event that they are triggered.
Well, that about does it for my perfect safe. Now I just need two suitcases of money: one to buy the safe and the other to put inside the safe once it’s finished.
