Custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault Fabrication

CNCROi.com builds the custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault!

I know you’ve been seeing A LOT of wood projects recently on CNCROi.com‘s blog but believe it or not, we process far more metal in the shop than wood related projects – it just happens that “wood” is an easier medium to document.

For the past two years, my focus was on getting the “wood” division of CNCROi.com up and running, from acquiring new machinery to improving workflow and capabilities and 2023 will be focused on getting these capabilities crystalized before going back into improving the “metal” division of the business.

As I’m essentially a one man shop with a bunch of robots, I need to focus my attention on bringing-up one boat up to speed at the dock rather than trying to bring everything up to spec together.

From cutting metal to permanently fiber etching it, CNCROi.com has done a bunch of projects that due to various reasons (mostly NDA), I can’t even show but when I can, I will, it just happens that the metal world is far more reluctant to share than the wood one.

Of course, if you are looking for items to populate a custom vault, my other business SandboxRanch.com can help make custom banks of any requirement as well.

A project CNCROi.com completed back in 2020 that I can now release information about was by far the biggest and heaviest we’ve done at that time, it was no less than the custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault!

The entire GitHub Arctic Code Vault was designed by CNCROi.com using the customer’s dimensional and material specifications with 304 stainless steel, the inner structure was 3 ga (~1/4″) and the outer 12 ga (~1/8″), even the hinges were stainless steel and the coolest part was every surface was permanently fiber etched!

Originally we were exploring building the entire GitHub Arctic Code Vault using 316 stainless steel but the cost to benefit ratio wasn’t in a positive direction so 304 stainless steel won the day, I coated everything with several layers of metal sealant instead.

There were several factors that made this project challenging, the biggest was getting supplies to build the GitHub Arctic Code Vault, it was in the opening months of the pandemic in 2020 when things were either shutting down or were closed, people were rotating sick duties and any type of material orders were a challenge to acquire.

As a result of these challenges, the project took a little longer than envisioned  but in the end, all things considering, it was a raging success and at the end of 2020, was placed 250 meters deep underground in the permafrost of an Arctic mountain where it rests to this day and for many eons well into the future in remove and secure Svalbard!

Here’s some phone picture of how it was built, my focus was on getting this big custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault made, not documenting the entire fabrication process, so it’s a little slim.

After all the different components of this custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault were cut, it was time to start putting everything together.

The process of welding stainless steel is a slow one, so while that was happening, I was fiber etching the plates so that the plates would come as the SS welder was putting the inner shell of the custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault together.

Nothing beats fiber laser etching on stainless steel for durability and so, LOTS of etching was performed on this project, every surface of the custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault was covered with these except for the bottom.

As the etching design was shared across the entire surface, being organized was vitally important, you don’t want to accidentally weld the wrong sequence of plates on the wrong side of the vault!

You can tell this was early 2020 as I didn’t acquire my Thermood CNC router yet, what you see here is my Shopbot PRSAlpha table holding the plates as my laser was etching them one after the other.

To give you an idea of the size of the finished custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault, it was six and a half feet tall (2 m), little more than 3ft wide (1.1 m) and a little more than 5ft deep (1.6 m) with a weight just under 3 000 pounds!

Lots of heavy stainless steel was pushed through at CNCROi.com to get this vault finished-up, the vault was to fit PERFECTLY into the area that was reserved for it, any bigger and it wouldn’t fit, any smaller, and it was a waste of space underground.

To give you an idea of the sizing of these outside stainless steel plates on the outside of the custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault, the ones in this picture are roughly 20″ square (50 cm).

Once one of these huge 12 ga plates were finished, the next one was in the queue for fiber etching, this process alone took several weeks of straight etching, thus getting the inner structure of the custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault built while I was etching it so both could be married together once both processes were finished.

I can sorta weld, the problem with the pandemic was that my welding classes were cancelled and stainless steel is a whole other animal when it comes to welding, so I hired a professional stainless steel welder with decades of industrial experience to stick it together as I didn’t want anything mediocre leaving CNCROi.com.

Each of these shelves were heavy ans as you can see in the picture, supported all around, what they were to contain was equally heavy, so there really wasn’t any skimping on material for this custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault at CNCROi.com.

I’m pretty sure you can guess how heavy the two doors were to be as well, so massive bullet hinges were welded to the superstructure to make opening and closing of this vault easy.

It’s just so beautiful looking at a whole table full of fiber laser etched stainless steel, it’s slow but wow does it really stand-out!

Once all the pieces of this project were cut, it was time to make two additional items, plaques commemorating the build process of the custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault, plasma cut no less!

Plasma cut, fiber etched, lots of that at CNCROi.com!

I don’t remember exactly what the weight specifications were for each shelf, but the only way to test it is with me! What you see in the picture next to me are weight plates, the testing was far in excess of what the customer required as a minimum, overbuilt this custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault was… as it should be!

After the entire 304 stainless steel vault was welded together, you can see the stitch welding of the fiber etched plates, and the little stickers I stuck on there to make sure the sequence was correct!

Suffice it to say, there was A LOT of heavy stainless steel welding required to finish-up this custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault.

Everything is looking a little brown and out of focus on this custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault because nothing was cleaned-up yet, this was done in the parking lot after all the welding and fiber etched plates were complete.

The lighting in the shop is nowhere near optimal for photography of any type, much less filming, hence very slim documentation other than cell phone photos of the entire process of bringing the custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault to life.

No surface was left untouched by CNCROi.com, even the top of the vault was fiber laser etched with paneling!

It wasn’t until the custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault was cleaned-up that the amazing beauty of stainless steel and fiber etching with professional welding came into light.

I felt kinda bad that this custom vault was to go 250 m underground because this really belongs in a museum (maybe it will eons in the future).

You can see how great the finished custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault is looking, inside and out, and how easy it is to open and close the doors thanks to the super heavy duty bullet hinges.

When it comes to stainless steel, CNCROi.com can cut, etch and welding it however you like to meet your design requirements.

Once the custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault was dried overnight, you can see the finished product, of course, there were custom stainless steel handles in the front applied as well.

Right before packing this custom GitHub Arctic Code Vault for delivery via truck and ocean, I took one last picture of the completed vault.

As stainless steel like fingerprints and scratches, I double-packed it, if something was going to damage this in transit to Svalbard, I wanted them to work very hard at accomplishing this goal. You can read more about the purpose of this vault over at https://archiveprogram.github.com/arctic-vault/

Need a custom vault for your valuables? Any size, shape or design profile, CNCROi.com can make it for you!