Aesthetics of Industrial Security

For my main project, I am designing and constructing a safe featuring a circular vault door. The aesthetic will have an industrial style, incorporating metallic finishes and exposing the door’s internal mechanisms. I am currently developing the CAD model for the vault mechanism. At the center of the door is a ring gear, which ensures that all locking pins engage and disengage in sync. Attached to the ring gear are 12 spur gears, which also function as pinions driving a rack connected to a dowel pin. This dowel pin secures the door when closed. Figure 1 illustrates a real-world vault door that employs a similar rack-and-pinion system and industrial aesthetic, which my scaled model will replicate.

Figure 1. Vault door made by the Mosler Safe Company from a now defunct bank.

In Figure 1, the vault door features 24 spur gears and 24 pins. However, due to the scale of my build, I will be using 12 spur gears and 12 pins. I will maintain the industrial aesthetic by incorporating multiple rings to secure the gears and pins, with an acrylic backing to keep the mechanism visible. In a full-scale safe of this design, the door is typically made of hardened steel, while the vault itself consists of concrete reinforced with multiple layers of rebar and an outer layer of thick plate steel. Given the scale of my project, I will significantly simplify the safe’s structural components.

Many of the components required to construct a functional metal safe are expensive. Precision-machined gears, for example, are manufactured to tight tolerances and can cost over $10 per gear when purchased from suppliers like McMaster-Carr. To reduce costs, I will fabricate all components from more affordable materials and paint them to resemble metal. The gears will be laser-cut from acrylic using patterns generated from GearGenerator.com, while the dowel pins will be sourced from acrylic stock available online. The main structural components of the safe, including the framework for the mechanism, will be cut from home insulation foam. This material is a cost-effective choice as it can be machined similarly to wood or metal while remaining significantly more affordable. The general layout of the mechanism in CAD is shown in Figure 2, while the rest of the door and safe have yet to be modeled.

Figure 2. Solidworks CAD model of the internal mechanism for my vault door.

While my vault door will feature a minimalist industrial aesthetic, there are many other design directions I could have explored. One alternative is an antique aesthetic inspired by cannonball safes, which are characterized by smooth, organic shapes and a completely rounded form without sharp edges. An example of this aesthetic is depicted in the sketch in Figure 3.

Figure 3. An antique aesthetic of a safe.

Another potential aesthetic approach would be designing a safe inspired by the look of a school locker, incorporating a Y2K-style aesthetic. This design would feature a bright color palette and the recognizable form of a school locker, creating a unique visual identity for the safe. An example of this aesthetic is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 4. A Y2K aesthetic safe

Images

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/Locksmith/comments/1dn1qiv/huge_vault_from_a_bank_that_shut_down_back_in/?show=original

This post was edited for clarity and conciseness using ChatGPT.