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This month we welcome the return of our Australasia correspondent, MAX CHERRY,
who has now left his vocational training teaching role to concentrate on his
many other interests in the locksmith and security industry “down under”. Here
he regales us with a report on the annual Crackers safe opening seminar which
attracted contestants from Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea!
Some 40 locksmiths from Australia,
New Zealand and Papua New Guinea
made the trip Albury, Australia to open
20 safes at the annual Crackers safe
opening seminar.
Albury is a great location to hold
Crackers. It is the halfway point on the
highway between Melbourne and Sydney,
around four hours drive from Melbourne
and six hours drive from Sydney.
Alternatively, Albury has an airport with
flights from most of Australia’s cities. Our
host is Shane Toga, who lends us his shed
for the week to set up, run and then pack
up the seminar.
‘Crackers has been run
annually for the past six
years usually around the
middle of May to early June’
Crackers has been run annually for the
past six years usually around the middle of
May to early June. The event is organised
by Eric Higgs from Locksmith Trader.
Eric arranges all the accommodation and
meals as well as the safes and the three
directors – of whom I am one, who all
support the participants in opening the
safes.
Other directors at Crackers are Gerry
Forder a well-known safe technician both
in Australia and overseas. Gerry makes
a range of safe opening tools and the
much used and appreciated Forder Safe
opening disk. Gerry’s disk has more than
300 safe pictures together with his method
for opening them. Jack Coomber is also
a director. Jack specialises in the design
and manufacture of lever lock pick and his
picks are widely sold and used across the
huge Australasia region.
There are also other invited industry
experts who assist over the weekend. This
year, Dean Hunt did a demonstration on
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hot and cold safe repairs. Aaron Smith,
assisted by Paul Prescott , ran a class and
demonstrated the Phoenix electronic safe
lock opening tool.
NMIT, a government vocational training
institute also supports the seminar with a
number of the Locksmith section teachers
attending the seminar. The locksmith
supply companies and lock manufactures
also attend. The participants bring along a
very wide range of specialist safe opening
gear and Eric and Shane provide power
tools hand tools and drill bits.
The general participants have a wide
range و