post office bank combination

[Gary Hoemann]

I'm making some little banks from old post office box doors, the ones with the combination locks. I've figured out how to determine the combination, what I'm wondering is if there is a way to reset the combination so I could use each child's initials as the combination. If anybody has any information on this, I sure would appreciate it.

[Lee DeRaud]

Take them to a locksmith. He might not want to show you how to do it yourself, but it probably wouldn't be that expensive to have him do it.

[Alden Miller]

Gary, I guess it depends on the doors that you have. I have some that were fairly easy to change. I just had to unscrew the back and rearrange the two cams inside the lock to point to the new combinaton.

See if you can take the back off of the door, it might be pretty self explanatory.

-Alden

[Gary Hoemann]

Alden, when I take the cover off the locks, I have three small, stacked metal disks with small holes around the perimeter. The top disk has a washer with a pin that goes in one of the holes. Center disk has two pins, top and bottom, bottom disk has one pin, on the top. I am sure they can be changed, just can't seem to get the logic of how you set a specific combination.

[Alden Miller]

That's similar to what I had. With the back removed go through the combination. You should see the discs line up when the combination is hit. Each of those discs is lined up to correspond with a letter. If you take the pin out you ought to be able to move the dial to the letter you want, then reinsert the pin.

All I can say is play around with it. If you want to put up a picture I might be able to give more details. Mine only had two discs, they are from around 1916. I sold a couple on ebay, they are apparently a hot item for the postal door collectors.

-Alden