How Are Liberty Safes Made?

A Guided Tour Through the Liberty Safe Factory (8:35)

Home and gun safes from Liberty are better because we build them better.

Our facility is the most technologically advanced safe manufacturing plant in the nation. We only use American-made pickled and oiled steel. We use rollform technology to build our trademark two-piece safe bodies. We use military-style locking bars for added security. And, of course, our gun safes are made in the USA.

Let’s see how it’s all done.

Raw Materials

The first step in building a Liberty Safe is bringing in the materials. We use all US-made steel. All of our steel is hot-rolled P&O steel. P&O stands for pickled and oiled, which is an older term that means the steel is etched with acid to get rid of any rust (pickled), and then the steel is oiled to make sure it lasts.

Trucks are delivering this steel to our facilities twice a day, which is important because we’re building around 700 safes per day.

Each steel roll is assigned and labeled for specific lines of safes to keep everything organized. The steel rolls will be decoiled and shaped into the body of the safe, and the back and door of the safe will come in as flat sheets of steel.

Decoiling & Shaping Steel

In this next phase of the process, the rolled steel is decoiled and shaped into the body of the safe. We’ll place the roll of steel into a decoiling machine that will flatten the sheet and punch it out. Punching it out simply means that the steel is cut and prepped to become the body of the safe.

We use roll-forming to help give the metal its shape, and then it goes into a wing bender machine that will bend the metal sheet to form the sides of the safe.

Liberty Safes’ strength comes partially from a safe that is made from only two pieces of steel: the box and the back. Two-piece safe body construction is the closest we can get to constructing a safe from a single piece of metal. Having fewer pieces allows the safe to withstand more punishment and be more resistant to pry attacks.

Initial Assembly

Now is where our hand processes really start. During the initial assembly, welders will tack the safe back onto the body of the safe. Then we utilize robot technology to weld the back completely in place, giving it a consistent, perfect weld every time. This single-bead weld only takes a few seconds. This is when the product really starts to look like a safe.

After this our grinders get to work to clean up the corner welds and any spatter. They’ll grind away nicks and imperfections to bring the quality that we aim for in every one of our products.

While the safes are being grinded for top-quality, welders will attach the safe’s front door. We have to make sure it is spaced just right and then lock it into place with heavy-duty welds.

Quality Control Check

Quality is everything, so we make sure to have plenty of checks along the way. Our first big quality control check takes place once the safe is assembled. We’ll check all the welds to make sure they look clean and smooth and also clean out the boxes, checking for any debris or dust to ensure they are good moving forward into the next phases of the manufacturing process.

Rinsing & Painting

Once the safes have been inspected and cleared for the next steps in the process, they are moved to an area for rinsing and painting.

First, they are rinsed off, then etched with a chemical, and then rinsed off a couple more times to ensure they are perfectly clean and ready to be painted.

In the paint room, safes are constantly being fed down a conveyor to get painted. During this process, little paint particles are electronically charged and the safe is grounded. This is important because it allows the paint particles to take hold on the surface of the safe like a magnet when they are sprayed on.

Next, the safes are slowly ran through a two-stage oven. The infrared sets off the geling process, and then a convection oven cures the coating over a 30-45 minute cycle. You can see the paint get shiny as it starts to melt and gel.

Once the painting process is done, that's when the logos are manually painted onto each safe, including a section that says “Made in the U.S.A.” Liberty is proud to have American-made products and we display the American flag with the same pride throughout our production facilities.

Main Assembly: Fire Protection & Security

Now it’s time for the pieces that give Liberty Safes the layers of protection and security that we value in each safe.

Fireboard

Fireboard lines the inside of each Liberty Safe to ensure protection against heat and fire. The more fireboards that are added, the hire the fire rating.

We use giant waterjet lasers to cut layers of fireboard to line our safes. After the fireboard is cut into the right shape, they are glued together and into the safes.

Military-style Locking Bars

Traditionally, safes use round pin locking bolts to hold the safe securely shut. At Liberty Safe, we use our own military-style locking bars instead. These locking bars provide more security against pry attacks because they cover more surface area and go deeper into the safe’s body than round pins do. This makes it almost impossible to pry open safes equipped with these bars.

Lock

Liberty Safes can come with a mechanical or electronic lock (or sometimes both). Most people opt for electronic/digital locks for ease of use.

Digital locks have come a long way and are very reliable. Our digital locks are EMP-resistant to help provide you with the top-security features on the market.

Palusol™

We include another layer or fire and heat protection with a Palusol™ fire seal. This seal expands to 7 times its size when it reaches 212 degrees Fahrenheit, sealing off both heat and smoke from the inside of the safe.

Palusol™ is such an effective seal because it maintains its expanded form even when temperatures reach over 1200 degrees, while other seals that we’ve tested tend to fall apart and let the heat in at that point.

Building Safe Interior

Our safes wouldn’t be the top-quality products that they are without a beautifully finished interior. Our team hand steams the safe door sleeves to remove wrinkles. These are the pockets that allow you to place more items in your safe door.

Our workers also staple the interior fabrics and trims to all of the interior walls, shelves, and gun racks, ensuring a perfect finish in every safe.

At this point we’ll also add the handle to the outside of the safe and assemble the interior shelving and dividers.

Final Inspection

Each Liberty Safe wouldn’t be complete without a final inspection to ensure the best quality possible. During this final quality check our team will look for:

Flaws in the paint
Flaws in the box itself
Working locks
Working mechanism
Overall quality, look, and functionality of the safe

After this final inspection, each safe goes right into a bag and box for shipping and is ready for distribution.

Research & Development

We have done extensive testing on our products to ensure their quality and protection. You may have even seen some of our videos.

Our team has tested our safes against competitor safes by dropping our safes from extreme heights, dropping thousand pound blocks of cement on the safes, and even blowing them up with dynamite to prove that the structural integrity of Liberty Safes is much more superior to our competitors.

Take a look at some of our videos:

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