I'm driving down the road one day and I spot sticking up from a pile of junk a diamond shining like the holy grail, after what seemed like an eternity of slow motion still eye contact and my wife course puching me to get back on the road I realize I must own this. She on the other hand only sees what every nonproject rational mind sees. Which by now is only classified by her eyes as "junk". I like to think of these items as a rebirth. Later that week while the vechicle occuponcy is less than that of the operator I stopped and talked to the owner of the pile of "junk". I picked the so called "junk" up which by now is called a safe for a mere $40. It was a very early model Heritage gun safe, small but just right for my little home and project for the winter. The door was badly dragging and the lock was dismantled and broken to bits inside. There was absolutely no interior and it was starting to suface rust for it had been outside for about 2yrs. The work began by trying to locate a S&G lock, found this complete off a demo safe that the new owner upgraded to an electronic for $25. Next began the process of birth or otherwise known to the mortal mind as wasting time on that stupid safe. When sanding and painting was complete the interior was next. In my research years ago the typical insulating material was 1/2" drywall as a typical 30 min. 1200 degree fire. Me being the overkill bring a RPG to a knife fight kind of guy decided this obviously wasn't going to be enough. I added 1-3/4 to the ceiling and floor and 1-1/2 to the walls and 3/4 to the door of drywall and sealing all cracks with silver furnace tape. I then added carpet and I made custom gun racks and a shelf from cherry wood from my Grandpa's farm. The final step was pinstripe and scrolls from ebay for $6 and a new fire seal fot the door.After all said and done with I had about $200 in it. I don't know what the fire rating would be on this unit but I'd put it up against some of the best.The extra drywall added weight like you wouldn't believe. After bringing home the new addition to the family the wife was quite suprised at how it turned out.
Before the rebirth

After