http://www.storemoreguns.com/ Try this place,may give you some ideas.Also go to a local store that handles gun safes and take a look to see what will work for your situation.Remember that your storage needs may change over time so try to keep it modular so it can be changed without starting over from scratch.
Hope this isn't off topic. I had heard that safes could be retrofitted with sheetrock to increase protection against heat. Is there a special type or is there an altogether different material I can use in a bare steel safe?
Pretty sure it's ordinary sheetrock. Fire rating dependent on thickness. IIRC, my safe has about 1 inch thickness of sheetrock and a 2 hour fire rating. But that sheetrock sure adds to the weight of the safe.
O.K. So you use either plywood or drywall. How to attach to walls. Can't drill?
I see materials in the ads for safes, for shelves, that looks like some foam kinda stuff but hard enough to be a weight bearing shelf. And it must be fire resistant, right? What is it.
Also, how to attach those shelf sloted verticle side brackets to drywall? And be strong?
Where to get the fabric and how to attach to drywall or shelves?
I'd use sheetrock against the exterior of the safe, with half-inch plywood as an underlayment to the fabric. Double sided tape to hold the sheetrock to the metal, with the plywood fastened to the other pieces in the corners, brackets or corner blocks. I'd also set a fixed shelf (with a series of cutouts for the barrels of long guns to set in) into a dado in the sides and back, but I tend to overbuild things. For fabric I'd look at the material that stereo speaker builders use, or an indoor/outdoor "carpet" glued to the plywood. Your average Home Depot standards and clips will more than do the job.
There are two types of drywall, fire rated and non-fire rated. Most fire rated drywall is labelled "type X" or noted as fire rated by the printing on one side of the drywall. To maintain the fire rating you must fire tape and seal the joints with the proper fire compound/tape or the fire can penetrate at the joints.
If you use any adhesive fasteners to attach drywall it will likely fail in a fire unless such adhesive was designed and tested to work in a fire. When UL, ANSI, Gypsum Association tests drywall assemblies for fire rating, it is tested as an assembly, including studs, fasteners, and spacing of those items. In other words, the entire wall, constructed properly, is tested and not just the drywall. It takes a hot fire and time to melt mechanical fasteners such as drywall screws.
Also, don't forget the Palusol type intumescent seal at the door/frame. This may be the toughest to modify on your safe since it wasn't constructed to have this seal so you would have to modify the door/frame to have this seal while allowing the door to close & latch properly.
Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!
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