Sticking sheet steel to gun safe walls

Why would you want to do that? Unless the sheet metal is a 1/4 inch thick I don't see the purpose.

Sounds like a good idea, the way my safe is mounted, there is one side that's vunerable to fire axe attack! It just wouldn't look very good...

Use 1/4" AR400 and bolt it with boron carriage bolts. I bought three vaults, bolted to floor wall and.each other. Really nice stuff stays in center vault. Have to cut through one of th end vaults to get to center. That is after defeating burglar bars, steel exterior doors on house and monitored alarm with cellular and radio backup in case they cut phone lines.

I've thought about doing this myself. Even if it didn't stop the thief at least it would make his job a lot harder. Most of the safes on the market can be cut open with a sawzall and a good quality blade. Is there a certain type of epoxy that would work best? Better yet what about welding the steel on?

FWIW, I've heard of folks putting a safe in a basement corner, building forms, and pouring concrete around it. Unless you have a cheap source of heavy plate that's likely to be easier/cheaper than adding metal.

The glue does not matter. Most safest are painted. You would be glueing steel to paint, not steel to steel. Boron carbide carriage bolts like used to bolt high security lock shackles would be only be beat by welding. Unless you are using at least AR400 of AR500 abrasive rated steel, will still cut hole through side in a few minutes with angle grinder and .040 cutting wheel. I make stuff out of steel every day and use high grade adhesives. If you are compelled, fiberglass resin is about as good of glue as you van get. If you want to protect one side, lay concrete block wall beside safe with rebar that extends into wall and slab. When we built my brothers house we had foundation person pour an 8'x8' room in corner of basement. Put his vault in room then Browning vault door on that. Only time he was broken in to, bad guys gave up trying to beat vault door out of wall before ableto get into vault room.

I'm going to disagree with a few of the previous posters. Layering sheet metal will make the safe more secure from certain types of attacks but not all. If you need to learn about the physics/engineering of layered steel look at the scallop shell and why it is uncannily strong against blunt force. I recommend stripping the safe's paint before applying specialized steel glue.

If you are going to purchase something resistant to drills, saws, welding, etc you need different types of materials. As with everything, there is a different tool for every problem. A good compromise is the AR400 (or similar) steel.

If you want it resistant to normal cutting tools, the way to do it is preloaded pieces of spring steel. As the blade goes through, the metal will exert pressure from the sides, binding and breaking apart the abrasive disc. It takes very little lateral pressure to destroy a standard 1/8" or 3/16" cutting disc.

This, of course, will not help with a smoke axe; If you want it resistant to a cutting torch, you have to incorporate concrete. Concrete and oxy-acetylene torches DO NOT get along. Anyone who's ever cut steel with concrete directly below knows what I'm taking about.

Ultimately, though, the best bet is a standard safe and other layers of security before they got to the safe. A hardened home with alarm and cameras, and the cameras linked to a remote server so that stealing the tape or DVR does them no good if they do get inside. Big dogs help, too.

Put a 3- gun safe in an 8- gun safe inside a 24- gun safe.

Bolt the 24- gun safe to floor and wall joists; Fill the 3- gun safe with angle iron, and a note that says "Sorry, the guns are in my other safe".

Put the other safe in the basement. Fill it with sandbags.

honestly, if you are going to spend the money to try and Re-enforce your safe.....you are better off just buying a new safe.


trying to glue/ epoxy the steel to the safe is a complete waste of time.....getting a solid bond will be very difficult....also most epoxies do not handle high stress and shock very well ( like you would see from a blow from a hammer/ crowbar).

trying to bolt the steel on is equally as useless, as 5min with a grinder/ hacksaw cut right through the bolts and will render the steel plate useless.

IF you were determined to re-enforce the safe, your best bet would be to completely strip all the paint off the safe and weld the steel plate on the safe.

bushmaster1313 said:

Would sticking sheet steel with epoxy to gun safe walls make it more secure?

How about an "L" shaped sheet on the top and sides?

Click to expand...

If this is what you are hell bent on doing, go to your Auto Parts Store & ask for (body panel epoxy)..................

Things like this seldom work. It will cost you more to cut and fit the panels than buying a better safe. Plus you would need to weld them at the seems, or a 10 lb sledge would make short work of them.

I used JB Weld to attach some 16 gauge steel to angle iron last month for a purely cosmetic project at work. Worked great until we went to move it and it got one sharp bump. It sheared right off. Both sides of the steel were clean, mill scale was sanded off, and it was clamped to dry overnight.

Didn't inspire a lot of confidence.

where do you live? house in the sticks or urban area? neighbors close by or far away? renting apartment or owning house? do you have an alarm system?

in many cases burglaries are simple smash&grab. especially when you have an ADT style home alarm system. trust me... most burglars do NOT come with steel cutting saws/fire-axes and once the alarm goes on they have a few minutes to get the stuff they want... I highly doubt they will sit there and flex open a safe (which will take 5 minutes at least) when the cops are on their way.

sometime I think we are a bit too paranoid... I have 3 coworkers who got broken into their houses this year and in every case they just took the random laying around laptop, gaming system, RX medications, cash and other non-secured valuables. Cops told my coworkers that the average burglar is in&out in less than 5 minutes....

in many cases burglaries are simple smash&grab. especially when you have an ADT style home alarm system. trust me... most burglars do NOT come with steel cutting saws/fire-axes and once the alarm goes on they have a few minutes to get the stuff they want... I highly doubt they will sit there and flex open a safe (which will take 5 minutes at least) when the cops are on their way.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Nothing is impenetrable, which is why safes are rated in time. If none of your neighbors can see your house and you have no alarm system, the best safe money can buy is not that big of an obstacle to a thief who believes his efforts will pay off. On the other hand, a relatively inexpensive safe will likely prevent theft if the burglar knows he has only minutes to get out before facing the police.

As I stated in the other thread covering about the same subject. All the safe does is increase the time it takes someone to get your stuff. Without an alarm they have time if bold enough to linger. As I said before in this thread you can't successfully glue steel to paint. I suggested if you just couldn't resist the urge, use carbide/boron bolts and minimum AR400 steel. It will at least slow the man that could get through down a bit more. Bottom line if someone shows up with the knowledge and time to get through a standard gun vault, your hillbilly reinforcing just adds five minutes to their task. Fix the problem correctly with better safe or better alarm. A sheet of AR400 or AR500 steel cut and bent at todays prices is a good down payment roward a better vault or alarm.

Would it help? To some extent perhaps. I agree with the previous poster. If you need a safe with X amount of steel, you'd be better served buying a safe already using steel that thick. I also wouldn't pour concrete around it.

These types of things are similar to guys who put loud exhaust on their car. They think it's faster, but it's really not. Modifying a fairly light gun safe isn't much different. It's still a light gun safe.

Building a wall around it is another story. If you wanted to stud up around it and screw in plywood/gypsum board/cement board that would add a decent barrier that would add to both the burglary and fire protection. It would also leave the safe easy to remove if ever needed.

Safe security

There are many ways to secrure a safe. Hiding them, covering them, are first things.Building them into certain parts of the home is another. But as for adding steel plate to it, it takes more then that.

Steel in layers can be stronger, but only under certain circumstances. If they are bonded or bolted together they are stronger against impacts, specifically sideload bending. They can still be cut thru and drilled thru, it will just take longer. To increase a safes resistance to burglery penetration, these layers of steel must be separated and have another barrior material added.

This will work for stand alone safes and for build ins. Imagine the stacking cubs you had when you were kids. five or six boxes that fit into eachother. Now take those boxes and make them the size of a dishwasher machine. Take one or two boxes out all together and now you have more room between the boxses that are left. Now lets take those boxes that are left and make them half inch thick stainless steel. In the spaces between the boxes, you fill with large aggregate concrete and rebar, and make sure there are no voids left.
Now your safe goes inside the center of these boxes. And a door with similar design will close over this. door hinges on the inside. multi stepped ridges where the door seals to prevent prybars.
Would be thieves cannot use a torch on stainless. Hole saws burn up quickly, sawzall blades just as fast. And then there is a layer of concrete and rebar. then more stainless.....

Send me a message for more info and ideas on this or any other fortafication matters.. MARK"OSO"

Hint: Lock up your own tools. I had to point this out to a friend. Now his carbide saw blades and cutting torch tips are IN the safe along with his valuables.

Also a big ass dog, is your best protection, along with the safe and alarm. Most crooks hate to deal with dogs.

Put a quart of scotch and $200 cash on top of the safe. That should be enough to get them to give up and move on.

joeschmoe said:

Put a quart of scotch and $200 cash on top of the safe. That should be enough to get them to give up and move on.

Click to expand...

Do you also just give $20 to the fellow who wants to mug you?