THE KRUPP ARMORED SAFE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12817, 17 July 1912, Page 7

THE KRUPP ARMORED SAFE.

! The struggle between the burglar and the safe manufacturer is as endless and eventful as the struggle between the makers of big guns and the makers of armour-plate, and the latter have now. joined tWees with the safe manufae- ■! turer to defeat the burglar. 'The most formidable weapon which science has placed m. the hands >of the burglar m recent j'ears is the oxy-acetylene blowpipe, "the flame that cuts steel," while the thermite process and high exploi sives are also occasionally used with success. The Bremen firm of August Brobeck and Co., l'ecently devised a burglar-proof safe, the materials for which were made at the great Krupp factory at Essen- The door is of very ■ complex construction. The outside plate is of thin Siemens-Martin steel. Then there is another compound armor-plate, ;nnd a layer of insulating material conj sistiug, of fire and thermite -proof • maJ terial, stiffened by girders, 'i'hen there '• is a thick sheet of the hardest and toughest Krupp armor-plate, sandwiched ; between Siemens-Martin 1 steel plates. ; Back of all this • protection is the lock .compartment, two Brebeck springless ■. 'powder-proof locks being tised. Every bolt of the locks is 'protected by special comporind armor. This great door, embedded m masonry, «as submitted' to a practical test, the entire 'resources of the Krupp. forges h«ing brought to bear against' it. Air ordinary oxy-acety- '■ lone jet failed to pierce the first outer j plate,, and the biggest . Fouche welding 1 burner m the factory was applied; After i fifty minfntes the outer, plate had, been melted through, 'and m an hour and ahalf the two following plates were eaten j into and pierced. /.Another hour's work j pierced the fourth plate, and the mii sulating material was dragged ; away. (Five and a-iialf hours after the attack ; started the sixth layer of Siemens-Martin I steel was pierced., and the surface of the Krupp . armor Jay bare. An hour and | a-half s work on. .'the Krupp plate by three . men; armed wjth special deepwelding burners, proved fruitless, the intense heat m the hole produced melting the .burners themselves. The safe j was then pronounced burglar-proof.