by Jeff Gater, CML

This was one of the most unusual jobs I have ever been called to do. Along a specific piece of coastline on the Atlantic Ocean there is a huge wall built along certain sections of the main boulevard  to keep the waves from washing away the road.  Many of the homes that are not right on the beach were built just across the street from the beach. In order to give safer access to the beach some of these homes share a tunnel which passes under the street to a door which opens up on the shoreline.

My job on this particular day was to open a stuck door in the ocean wall and replace the lock and the hinges. When I entered the tunnel there were men preparing the walls for painting. The air was heavy and it was hard to breathe. It was also very hot and humid, opening the door was more about creating a safer work environment for the painters than granting safe passage to the beach.

I knew the lock would have plenty of corrosion to deal with. To my surprise the inside handle unscrewed without a lot of difficulty. Under the lever rosette were two additional screws which held on the lever return spring assembly, these screws also backed out rather easy and I thought this job was going to be much easier than anticipated. But my original gut feeling was correct. After removing the parts I could with little difficulty the whole job stalled. I flooded the lock as best I could with WD-40 which works great for loosening corroded parts, but the hub which turns to retract the latch and the smaller hub used for unlocking the deadbolt were fixed solid. There was no movement in either direction.

I took some tools and moved to the outside of the door along the ocean. My plan was to remove the key cylinder and retract the deadbolt with a screw driver. Just about the time I was ready to remove the mortise cylinder my feet were flooded with sea water. The tide was coming in and there was no place for me to work and avoid the incoming waves. I aborted that plan and returned to the tunnel.

I had to get to the lock case somehow. The only way possible was to cut half way through the hollow door and expose the lock case. From there I drilled out the case screws and pulled open the case cover about an inch. I discovered the entire mortise case was packed with sand! The lock bolt and latch had no room to move even if there was no corrosion. The case cover was removed and all the sand that could be dug out with a screwdriver was removed. The lock bolt was welded to the case by corrosion and it took a hammer and cold chisel to break it loose. The latch was removed the same way and finally I was able to push the door open. The ocean breeze rushed through the tunnel and the heat and stuffiness vanished immediately.

The door was resistant to push open all the way. At the top of the door was a piece of hardware called a transom bar. The purpose of this bar was to keep the door from opening beyond 90 degrees. It also contained a large spring that served as a shock absorber in case the wind whipped the door open.

The transom bar was filled with sand as well. I’m sure over the years and the couple of hurricanes that came close to this area the waves would have been breaking at the top of the wall, which in turn carried sand into every crack and crevice along the walls surface. Hence, the lock case filled with sand.

The transom bar had very little corrosion and worked perfectly after the sand was removed. The hinges were also replaced and a new lock was installed. The lock function chosen was a Schlage L9456, Corridor Lock. This function prevents an accidental lockout. When the inside lever is used to exit the tunnel the outside lever unlocks automatically. The outside lever can only be locked when the outside key or inside thumb-turn is used to throw the deadbolt. This function would allow people to visit the beach and not worry about carrying a key with them.

Since a section of the door was cut out, push plates were used to hold the “cut out” piece in place and give a mounting surface for the inside lever and thumb-turn. The whole job took about 6 hours to complete.

I have received many phone calls from around the country of people looking for this hardware. I do not know where to purchase this hardware nor do I sell it directly.

If a local customer in Palm Beach County, FL wanted me to provide and install this hardware I would start looking in Google Images under Baldwin Flush Pull Passage Function Passage Set.

A customer contacted me about installing Baldwin Flush Pulls, he found me on the internet while searching for someone to install a mortise lock. This customer lived two counties away but was willing to hire me after dealing with the local locksmiths in his area.

Before this customer called I had never heard of a Baldwin Flush Pull, at least not a flush pull that would retract a passage latch much like a door knob or lever. I received some photos of the hardware but still did not understand how it all fit together on the door. I plainly told the customer, although I had plenty of experience with Baldwin I never installed a flush pull on a passage latch.

The customer still had confidence from reading my blog that I was the guy who could solve his problem within his deadline. When I arrived on site I examined the doors and the hardware. The holes in the door were only location holes, the cross-bore was too small and the hole for the latch was not deep enough. I was concerned about how the hardware was going to stay attached to the door. Baldwin knobs and levers (with a few exceptions) are held on the door by the knob or lever on the opposite side of the door. Each door knob has a set screw which tightens onto a square shaft called the spindle. The spindle fits through the latch hub and extends an equal length on either side of the door far enough to allow room for a decorative rosette and the knob set screw to get a good bite. The flush pull does not attach to the spindle with a set screw, in fact the flush pull came out of the box with a small ½ inch spindle attached to it.

Once all the hardware was examined I was delighted to find a special spindle made just for the customer’s application. Normally the spindle will pass through the latch hub unabated, but this spindle was crimped on one side which allowed the spindle to stop against the latch hub. When the lever was used to pull open the door the spindle simply pulled against the latch hub, a lever on the opposite side of the door was unnecessary. To fit the flush pull onto this latch I removed the ½ inch spindle that came with the “pull”. The square hole fit over the spindle already in the door and wood screws were used to attach the flush pull to the door surface.

There are times when the need for new locks is obvious, but the door, or gate in this case is so badly deteriorated new locks cannot be installed until repairs are made. The gate on this job-site was 2 5/16 inches thick, about 5 feet high and 5 feet wide. Replacing the gate was ruled out because of cost. The area to be repaired was very large which made plugging, or installing new wood to re-bore impractical.

I offered a solution I thought would be cost effective, plus give the locking hardware a solid foundation to mount onto. I submitted drawings to the Don-Jo Manufacturing Company (Don-Jo) to have custom wrap-a-round plates made of stainless steel. The cost was outrageous and I advised the customer to consider replacing the whole gate. The customer decided to install the wrap-a-round plates for two reasons. First, he liked my work and did not want to go through the hassle of getting quotes and finding someone whose work he could trust. Second, the stainless steel plates would add years of maintenance free operation to the gates life.

I ordered the custom hardware and a new deadbolt. The deadbolt would need a special “extension kit” for installing into an extra-thick door. All the hardware arrived in about 5 weeks, which is normal for custom order hardware.

The edge of the gate was plugged with new wood (no photo) so the gate could be re-bored, placing the latch and deadbolt in the true center of the gate. In the “before” photos it is easy to see the latch and deadbolt are not centered.

The wrap-a-round plates could only be made for a 2 ¼ inch thick door. The gate was 2 5/16 inches thick. The plates were 1/16 of-an-inch to narrow. I used wood clamps to compress the door but still had too round-off the corners of the gate edge to get the plates fitting snug and square. The finished product reinforced the existing wood plus covered all the exposed cracks and attempts to re-bore and counter-bore holes for the deadbolt lock.

The gate frame had to be shaved down with a block plane and rabbit plane to compensate for the wrap-a-round plate thickness. The strike plates were anchored through the frame into the block wall using Tap-Con concrete screws. Later on the wrap-a-round plates were painted to blend-in with the gate.

Installing a Safe in a Wood Cabinet

By Jeff Gater, CML

Some time ago an executive secretary contacted me on behalf of her employer who wanted a small safe installed in a cabinet, but bolted into the concrete floor to prevent thieves from ripping out the safe and carrying it away.

I stopped by to measure the cabinet. My plan was to pull the furniture away from the wall and measure the distance from the floor to the bottom of the cabinet where the safe would sit. The hollow space between the cabinet bottom and the floor would have to be filled in so the anchor bolts would not stress or crush the cabinet when the safe was bolted down.

When I arrived to measure, the cabinet was 16 feet long and 7 feet tall, there was no way to pull it away from the wall. I opened the cabinet door and measured from the floor to the cabinet bottom. My original plan was to fill the hollow space with blocks of wood or large dowels. Now the plan was to make the anchor bolt pass through the dowel and into the steel anchor. This would require boring a large hole in the cabinet bottom so the dowel could be installed from the top.

I chose a 1 ½ inch dowel which would allow me to cut a 1 ¾ inch hole through the cabinet bottom. Any larger and the holes would show on the sides of the safe. A smaller hole would make the job very difficult. The hole had to be large enough to fit a vacuum hose for removing the concrete dust when drilling for the drop anchors.

The dowels were cut to size on a table saw. Boring the ½ inch hole through the center of the dowel started by clamping the dowel in a metal lathe and boring a pilot hole from either side, gradually making the holes larger until the ½ inch hole was bored perfectly through the center of the dowel.

The greatest challenge was making a straight hole through the cabinet, the empty space between the cabinet and the floor, the wood floor and the concrete floor without the drill going off track. To accomplish this I used a reducing bushing from my lock installation jig. The bushing reduces a half inch hole in the jig to a quarter inch hole used to guide a quarter inch pilot drill through metal doors. I tried a 5/16 inch reducing bushing with a wood cutting speed-bore drill, but the drill fit sloppy which allowed the hole to wander.

When the reducing bushing guided the carbide drill to a perfect transition from cabinet to floor, the same bushing was used to guide a 1 ¾ inch hole saw to open up the holes through the cabinet bottom. The 1 ¾ inch hole allowed room for a flash light to see all three holes for drilling, vacuuming and setting the steel anchors into the concrete floor. The dowels used for spacers were too long and cut to size using a vise and a hand saw in the back of the truck.

The anchor alignment was so perfect the anchor bolts threaded in perfectly and the safe was almost secure as being welded to a steel I-beam.

I am posting this blog for customers who have purchased or are purchasing the Keefe 300 Strike Plate. According to people who have called me from all over the country this product cannot be found for purchase anywhere.

The strike installation requires a router, router guide, 3/8″ end-mill for the router and a router template. A few customers have purchased the 300 strike to install by hand, this job is possible with a removable door stop. Most doors I run into have a rabbited jamb with a magnetic or pressure-seal weather-stripping. I cannot imagine installing a 300 strike by hand in this type of door frame.

For now I am shipping an outline of the router template so customers can make their own or have one made. In the future I may have disposable templates available.

There are many steps to installing this strike plate. I have used many photos from different jobs to demonstrate each step.

Remember Forest Gump’s box of chocolates? You never knew what you were going to get. The same is true with residential metal doors. Even after many years of installing deadbolts I cannot tell you if a metal door will have a wood core (the ideal situation), a foam core or a hollow core. For metal doors with wood cores nothing extra has to be added to the door. The lock mounting bolts will tighten without squeezing the door and attempts to beat the lock off the door are made more difficult as well.

Foam core or hollow core metal doors pose a different challenge. If nothing is installed inside the core the locks mounting bolts will squeeze the door to a thinner thickness, thus binding the lock. If the screws are left “snug,” they will loosen over time causing a security risk. Perhaps even a lockout risk.

The following photos will show case the Ames 1346 Door Support and the Don-Jo VP-61-AB wrap-a-round plate. For years I used wrap plates made by the MAG manufacturing company. But MAG went out of business several years ago. Don-Jo makes a thicker gauge wrap plate which offers more strength against burglars. Don-Jo is best known for their line of heavy duty latch guards, but since using their wrap plates on many of my jobs I have to say Don-Jo makes world class products.

Part 2 will go into detail on how to install a Keefe 300 Strike Plate. Several customers have contacted me about this product, so I decided to offer instructions on how to install the 300 strike for those adventurous types.

One of the most challenging jobs a professional locksmith will encounter is installing a full mortise lock. While talking with one of my mentor’s who fought in WWII, I was told the full mortise lock was a very common lock in the prewar era. The whole lock with solid brass handles could be purchased for about $36.00. And the lock was built to last, possibly forever if maintained correctly. I’m sure the labor to install these locks was a small fraction of what it cost today. However, a gallon of gas was less than 25 cents and a loaf of bread cost about a nickel. So all things need to be kept in perspective.

Mortise means the whole lock fits into a cavity cut into the door. The idea was to conceal the deadbolt and latch mechanisms while only showing off the beautiful decorative handle-set on the entry way of a home. Even today the front door is often the homes presentation (or first impression) to the neighborhood and sets the theme for what the decor might be inside.

Not all locksmiths are created equal. About 10 years ago I was called to a home to see if I could correct another locksmiths attempt at a mortise lock installation. When I arrived the handle-set was on an angle, as opposed to vertical and parallel to the door frame. I installed the lock so it would function as intended, but I could not cover some of the holes drilled through the door. Since the door was brand new and the door company provided the locksmith to install the mortise lock, the customer demanded a new door. The point is the locksmith was questioned by the customer, “have you ever installed this kind of lock before?” The locksmiths response was, “of course, I have installed many of these locks before.” Obviously the locksmith forgot the procedure or he might have been lying.

Any locksmith who has installed a mortise lock before should be referred by reputation, have photographic proof of his or her work, or be able to show the customer the specialized tools they have purchased to insure an accurate and competent job. In other words, don’t hire a locksmith on the fly to do such an intricate time consuming task.

The following is a small sampling of mortise locks I have installed on “virgin” doors, or doors with no existing holes. I have worked on many mahogany or special order doors where the installer only gets one chance to do a perfect job. Some doors were metal, these were especially time consuming. Metal residential doors must have a wood core to install the lock in. Commercial metal doors are usually prefabricated to accept a mortise lock. Only the cylinder and handle holes have to be drilled through. Another time consuming mortise lock installation are double-doors. These doors have an active door which gets the working hardware, and an inactive door which gets “dummy” hardware. The challenge of these doors is to get the dummy hardware level and symmetrical to the active hardware. These types of installations are especially stressful and time consuming. Everything must look balanced from the street to when a visitor is close enough to push the door bell button.

The next set of photos are of two mortise locks I recently installed this year. You may notice the door looks different from one photo to the next. That is simply because I forgot to photograph a procedure on the first door and was getting the images I needed from the second door.

The new wave of security is to go “key-less”. More landlord’s are calling me to install battery powered push button locks so the renter can be given a code instead of a key, or a customer wants to enter their home without having to carry a key. More deadbolt locks are being introduced to the market that can be unlocked or locked from a smart phone. Although these locks may offer convenience and accountability, the biggest obstacle to these “new wave” locks is reliability. In other words, can you be certain the lock will open or re-lock when you send the command to do so from your phone?

So far the only lock I have seen with any promise of reliability is the Arrow Revolution Deadbolt. There are other brands, but the problem with self-powered locks is the gears which actually throw or retract the deadbolt. Many times these gears are plastic and wear out quickly. The other factor to an automatic lock wearing out prematurely is the installation of the lock. Were the holes bored accurately, do the mounting screws tighten without binding the inner-workings of the lock, does the deadbolt line-up perfectly with the strike plate? Even a great lock will not work properly if not installed correctly.

Recently I was called to replace a Schlage “G” lock with a passage lever and a Schlage push button deadbolt. For residential use Schlage offers the simplest and most reliable push button lock. I like the Schlage lock because there is no motor or gears, just a solenoid which engages or dis-engages an outside thumb-turn for the end user to operate. If Schlage does offer the unlock application for a smart phone in the future, the app will only unlock the lock long enough for someone to grab the thumb-turn and retract the lock bolt. In my opinion this is a much better system because the lock cannot opened automatically. Someone must be present to retract the bolt and open the door.

The photos to follow will take you through the challenges of replacing locks on metal doors. Wood doors can be plugged with real wood and re-bored and repainted. Metal doors for the most part cannot be plugged. Although I have plugged a metal door in the past, I was only able to do so because the door had a wood core. For metal doors locksmiths use Wrap-a-Round plates to cover old holes. MAG was a huge manufacturer of Wrap-a-Round plates, but went out of business a few years ago. Now the only company I know of that makes wrap plates is Don-Jo Manufacturing. Enjoy the photos.

Concealed vertical rods are aesthetically pleasing because most of the hardware is hidden inside the door. The problem with repairing or replacing concealed vertical rods is solving the puzzle of how the hardware comes apart. Since most of the locking mechanism is “concealed,” inside the door many of the screws which hold the hardware together are not obvious to the untrained eye. And this of course is the whole purpose of concealed hardware, to make the architecture look clean and flawless, yet work smoothly and offer good security.

High traffic doors on schools and other places of assembly must have panic hardware on all exit doors, commonly referred to in the trade as a “means of egress.” The panic bar replaced in this blog was a Jackson concealed vertical rod exit device on a trade school. The original plan was to keep the doors locked at all times, even during school. The Life Safety Code demands the doors must be unlocked with one motion in a place of assembly. So the doors were installed with a lock which throws bolts into the top header and the threshold of the door frame. Even though they are double doors each door works independently of the other door.

The concealed rods offer another advantage in that hand trucks cannot run into them and damage the locking system. Students cannot hang on the rods or tie things to the exposed hardware. These reasons help the hardware last longer and keep repair cost down. If the school wanted the doors to remain unlocked there is a mechanism built into the device which locks the panic bars in the “pushed down,” position, thus saving wear and tear on the moving parts of the panic device.

When replacing concealed vertical rods, whether it is a three-point deadbolt or a panic device, the door will have to be removed 99% of the time to allow the lock enough room to slide into the door cavity.

This is rarely a Do-It-Yourself project, or a maintenance man job. Your best and most economical option is to call a locksmith experienced with these types of locking systems.

The next door is an Adams Rite concealed vertical rod deadbolt.

Professional locksmiths can be found in your area at: www.findalocksmith.com or www.clearstar.com

Every blog written on this website has been authored and copyrighted by Jeff Gater, CML and Gater’s Locksmith, Inc.

The most neglected piece of hardware on any door is the hinge. More specifically the hinge screws. There have been countless times when I had to repair a door that would not close properly before I could re-key the locks or install a deadbolt. Most of the time all I do is tighten the hinge screws and the door swings and latches like like the customer has never seen. Some hinge screws were never installed, but most of the time the screws are very loose from neglect. If you have a door that needs an extra shove to close or open try tightening the hinge screws before you replace the door or the locks.

Heavy wood or steel doors may rub the door frame even after the hinge screws are tightened. The weight of a swinging door can bend, or deform the top hinge causing the door to sag. Another culprit to deforming the hinge is the janitor who shoves his or her mop handle into the hinge side of the door to hold the door open. This will cause immediate problems with the door closing properly. A sagging door will rub on the door frame or the threshold. This rubbing will prevent the door from self-closing and latching if there is a door closer on the door. If there is no door closer a sagging door will create an inconvenience to employees or customers who have to pass through the door way. The door will be hard to open and most likely left ajar. All the buildings heat or air-conditioning will escape resulting in higher energy cost. Not to mention the liability if someone gets hurt on a door not functioning properly.

There is a tool for adjusting or bending the top hinge so the door will fit square in the frame again. The tool is called the “Hinge Doctor,” and is made be GKL Industries. There are three sizes, commercial, industrial and prison type hinges. The Hinge Doctor is not made in a size for residential homes. To use the Hinge Doctor the tool is slid over the top hinge while the door is closed. Open the door until you feel the resistance of the tool stopping the door. Now pull or push the door about 6 inches past the resistance point. Close the door and remove the tool from the hinge. Test the swing of the door, it should swing without getting stuck on the frame or threshold.

The Hinge Doctor is a temporary repair on heavy high traffic doors. These doors will eventually sag again from the weight of the doors constant pull on the top hinge. In these situations I use a piece of hardware called the Surface Mounted Pivot. After the door is re-aligned, the Pivot is installed on the door and frame to assist the hinge in supporting the weight of the door while the door is swinging. I have installed the Surface Mounted Pivot on schools, banks and any commercial door which gets high pedestrian traffic. Usually the Surface Mounted Pivot will solve the sagging door problem for many years. Sometimes the mounting screws can come loose and servicing is required, but this is rare.

Before you purchase a new door or locks to correct a door that is hard to open or close, check the hinges. You will be surprised how tightening a few screws can resolve many door closing issues.