Here I hand cut a key for an old circa 1900’s Chubb Book Room Door safe, as the builders had lost both keys. Under normal circumstances, making a key by hand would take approximately two hours, but in this case the door pan had to come off.  With the help of my fellow safe engineer, Dave Kneafsey, we numbered all the handmade bolts, as its important that they go back in the same order. We then proceeded to remove the door pan - being careful not to damage the marble tiles - to reveal the old hand made Chubb 7 lever lock. Obviously this old safe, and all its parts are no longer being made, so we were not able to simply replace the lock. 

A master key was hand-crafted lever by lever, bit by bit. Once the master key was finished, I was then able to cut another key by machine. The keys were tested, and all working nicely, so we were finally able to refit the door pan. After about an hour or so the pan was back on, all the bolts in the correct order and working just as it should do. As you can imagine, this was an expensive lost keys moment so be careful when handing keys out to anyone!