Core boring

[Andrew Gabriel]

Wasn't me - I'd have used a spirit level to line up the holes...

[Tim Watts]

Wasn't me - I would not get through those holes...

So as suspected, the "2m of concrete" was complete bollocks.

But it's still quite thick...

I wonder why they did not just do 4 holes and make a square like the Berlin job?

[Syd Rumpo]

Presumably that's a good shape for someone wriggling through - that's my alibi secured - and 4 holes would take longer anyway.

Cheers

[Chris French]

Lots of the stuff quoted in the media in the early days after these sort of things is bollocks. They don't have the hard info so they use 'quotes' from 'sources' etc.

Cos 3 was enough?, and it must take sometime to drill those holes.

and maybe on the Berlin job they felt they had more time to get organised as they were working from the tunnel (thought the tunnel was neat job as well)

[GB]

But you might scrape off a lot of skin cells on the concrete?

Is that a 10 inch bit they used?

[GB]

German engineering. :)

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, I was thinking something like the hole at the Churchill War Rooms, where a room which had been completely filled with concrete because it was underneath a stair well during the war had a hole drilled through it so people can walk around the various war rooms in the basement. ISTR that is more like 2m thick, but it's been drilled out with lots of smaller core holes, leaving a postage stamp profile at the edge.

[Dave Liquorice]

Maybe that's why the forensic examination has taken so long. They'd be looking for just that sort of evidence.

Looks a bit bigger to me, 12"+

Also there is no obvious reinforcement showing. It looks just like poured blocked of concrete. When was this vault built? Perhaps it predates large diameter portable diamond core drills?

[Nightjar]

Somebody posted a link previously to its opening in 1949.

[Nightjar]

The hole that impressed me is the exit from the nuclear bunker at Kelvedon Hatch. They cut it through the original nuclear blast-proof walls, which are several meters thick.

[newshound]

Good to see them wearing full PPE

[Chris Hogg]

I'm not familiar with industrial extension cables, but the drill they're said to have used, a Hilti DD350, is a 3000W 110V job, so it would require a significant cable, presumably run down the lift shaft, unless they were able to plug in near the vault door and use a transformer.

[Andy Burns]

Probably some 13A sockets in the corridors for the cleaners, looks like they had a hosepipe to supply water for the diamond drill

[Dave Liquorice]

30 A as far as cables go that isn't big. What's the rating of 2.5 mm^2 bit of 6 mm^2 flex would probably do without too much voltage drop.

3000 W will run from a single 13 A socket, might get a bit warm tho'. Easy enough to use two 13 A sockets though and less risk of the fuse blowing, unless it's been replaced with 3/4" of 6" nail. 3 kVA site transformers are not hard to come by.

[Cursitor Doom]

Actually, the robbery squad now reckon it was the perfect cut-out for someone with a beer belly to squirm through on their side. Care to get anything else off your chest?

[John Rumm]

Nice illustration of one of the commonly cited failings of security... you make the door unbreakable, thinking that will slow them down a bit, and they simply ignore the security and work round it!

[John Rumm]

The one in this photo looks fairly hefty:

[Sam Plusnet]

Maginot Line?

What intrigued me about those photos was the areas which have been blurred.

I can understand why they would blur anything on those individual boxes which might identify the owner, but there's a few other spots that have been blurred out (second photo for example). What & why?

The text says "...and use heavy cutting equipment to break through wall and 18 inch steel door"

No pictures of any such door like that, only the one where they cut & bent three bars.

Amongst the items left behind was an angle grinder.

Anyone here like to give it a home, when the police are finished with it?

[F Murtz]

Better than a how to tutorial for entrepreneurs with a criminal bent.

[dennis]

All the security works on the assumption that it slows them down until someone catches them. If the alarms are ignored and the building isn't checked often enough there is no security.