It hasn't, yet...still waiting for the iron oxide to arrive.

LN2 would be difficult to lay hold of, doubt very much I could mail order it, and I don't think the local welding store will do gas supplies, I think years back I checked with them, and one needs already to have a tank before they will sell gases, they don't rent or sell the things.

It would be by far the preferable option, but I don't think I can obtain it, at least, not without a lot of expense, and sadly, I am poor as shit, not to put too fine a point on it.

Already have aluminium powder however, and a sledgehammer, mortar/stone chisels, and iron oxide is on its way...so thermite it is, at least, it will be tried.

LN2 might also have the disadvantage of requiring a closed-circuit air supply or rebreather in enclosed conditions...all that N2 evaporating rapidly in a confined space will exclude all the air, and leave it an unbreathable atmosphere, and I want to be able to look inside the safe, and bugger the hell off, not hang around for hours waiting to be able to breathe again, or be seen walking around suited up looking like an extra from starship troopers

If you're still planning on thermiting it, prepare to part with whatever is in it. Thermite will not be kind to the contents, even if you had a way of knowing how much is just enough.

Cutting or cryocracking is the best option here.

"Appears" is a fairly hazardous assumption.

Thermite is quite hot and heat is not directed. It isn't as if you can thermite off the hinges the same way you could use a shaped charge to shear them with the force being directed away from the contents, assuming there aren't any locking bars.

The problem with thermite is that it burns roughly seven times hotter than the ignition point of paper. Steel is a good conductor of heat, but rather limited in its ability to act as a heat sink.

That heat has to go somewhere.

The amount of thermite required to melt the thing open will be quite high. It isn't as if you can use a small amount which will just melt the surface.

I think Mythbusters ran some demos about explosives and thermite against safes. While I would be loathe to hold up Mythbusters as rigorous scientific inquiry, you might torrent that episode and at least watch some of the mechanics of energetics against safes. Seeing a few safes hit with energetics might help you visualize just how hard it is to contain the energy to what needs to go without dumping it into the contents.

cryocracking is the best option--yeah! just get almost any liquified gas and freeze the hinge and then hit it with a "sodding big hammer"

forget about heating it first, depending on the size of the hinge as to how much 'gas' you'll need,,but I reckon about a litre of LPG (with some directional nozzle) will do the trick....now IF you had some liquid nitrogen...hmmmm? ...got any friends whose a doctor? they use it for "burning off " warts etc

Oh I would just love to be able to soak a few drops of nitroglycerine into the hingest and let the bugger go, but the filth have been trying to pin charges involving explosives on me for YEARS, without success, after one...incident.

Besides, even if I could risk that, letting off a wad of boom-clay in a residential area might just attract some pretty bloody fast attention of a most undesirable sort....trust me, it does, things going kablooey draws attention....I was a kid once, y'know, and possibly not a very nice one either at times ^_^

Making a contribution once every couple years
probably isn't extremely valuable..

??was a metal cutting circular saw considered on those exposed hinges?

By now, that sucker should be open..

Is it?

LoVe,
d

Haven't been in there for a while. Health issues have stood in the way. Toady finds it difficult to bend, or walk without a cane now. So he has to bee VERY careful if there is any chance the plod turning up, he just can't leg it, scale fences, even shooting 4-5x OC 40s a day when the knee and now hip get bad, and walks slowly even then.

A power saw would be too noisy. Toady needs to have a crack with that thermite.