![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I love working with wood. I love tools
Oct. 6th, 2008 10:21 pmOur front door hasn't latched all summer. We have expansive soil under one corner of our house that swells when it's wet and shrinks when it's dry. The door frame warps, catching the top of the door and mis-aligning the door latch to the latch plate. Until this year, watering the house has made our door latch. This year, it isn't working.
We can jam the deadbolt if we push/pull the door really hard while turning the key but trying to unlock it has bent my key and broke Brandon's.
Sunday afternoon Project:
Install security latch plate that has a longer opening so it won't matter how wet or dry the soil outside is.
This involved drilling holes deep enough to hold the security latch box and chipping away at the wood between the holes and on the door frame itself to inset the whole longer latch plate. It also involved drilling two screw holes inside the latch box for more strength and the two mounting screw holes.
The guide that came with the security latch plate was 1/4" longer than the actual item. It said to use the paper guide to drill the holes. I checked before using it and found the holes did not line up at all. I used the actual face plate as my guide, guessing the dimensions of the box part that had to set into the door frame. I got it exactly the right length! It took a lot of wood chiseling to get it to set into the door frame. I was grateful for the new mallet and chisels I picked up. The mallet has sand inside that makes it a dead hit - meaning no rebound and for my bad joints and sensitive nerves, that was a very good thing. Sharp new chisels were good, too. Maybe I had to swing the mallet more because it wasn't as heavy as a solid one, but my arm isn't giving me any trouble at all! My back, however, is a different story.
At one point I did ask for help from somebody strong. There was a finishing nail in the second layer of door frame that luckily didn't damage my drill bit. I used vice grips after freeing it from wood enough to get a hold on it but wasn't strong enough to pull it out. Brandon stepped up to the challenge and had to wedge himself in the doorway to get it out of the hole.
I was a bit off on the embedding part of the face plate but it's nothing a little wood putty and paint won't fix. By the time I got to the face plate area chiseling, I was pretty darned tired and my back was screaming at me. I wasn't as careful as I could have been.
Only one of the two interior screw holes lined up so I have one long screw left over.
As I was working on the last part of the chiseling, Eric decided he should call his dad. He hasn't talked to his dad in a couple of months. Before he went to the back of the house to call his dad (away from the bang bang of my mallet) he made sure I didn't want him to take over. I told him not yet, but it might not be long as tired as I was getting. He laughed. He knows me. He knows I have a hard time letting a project go.
I finished and cleaned up, Brandon checking my work by closing the door and teasing that he was going to lock it. lol It closed perfectly and solidly! Woot!
Then I flopped onto the bed, all sweaty, exhausted and in pain but still pleased with my work. Eric was talking to his dad about how I was the woodworker of the family. Apparently he told his dad what I was doing and his dad asked who the man of the house was. heh I love challenging gender roles!
The only problem I see with using a deadbolt security plate instead of the traditional door latch plate is that there isn't the curl of metal over the wooden edge of the door frame to protect it from the latch. Eric is going to work on that.
We can jam the deadbolt if we push/pull the door really hard while turning the key but trying to unlock it has bent my key and broke Brandon's.
Sunday afternoon Project:
Install security latch plate that has a longer opening so it won't matter how wet or dry the soil outside is.
This involved drilling holes deep enough to hold the security latch box and chipping away at the wood between the holes and on the door frame itself to inset the whole longer latch plate. It also involved drilling two screw holes inside the latch box for more strength and the two mounting screw holes.
The guide that came with the security latch plate was 1/4" longer than the actual item. It said to use the paper guide to drill the holes. I checked before using it and found the holes did not line up at all. I used the actual face plate as my guide, guessing the dimensions of the box part that had to set into the door frame. I got it exactly the right length! It took a lot of wood chiseling to get it to set into the door frame. I was grateful for the new mallet and chisels I picked up. The mallet has sand inside that makes it a dead hit - meaning no rebound and for my bad joints and sensitive nerves, that was a very good thing. Sharp new chisels were good, too. Maybe I had to swing the mallet more because it wasn't as heavy as a solid one, but my arm isn't giving me any trouble at all! My back, however, is a different story.
At one point I did ask for help from somebody strong. There was a finishing nail in the second layer of door frame that luckily didn't damage my drill bit. I used vice grips after freeing it from wood enough to get a hold on it but wasn't strong enough to pull it out. Brandon stepped up to the challenge and had to wedge himself in the doorway to get it out of the hole.
I was a bit off on the embedding part of the face plate but it's nothing a little wood putty and paint won't fix. By the time I got to the face plate area chiseling, I was pretty darned tired and my back was screaming at me. I wasn't as careful as I could have been.
Only one of the two interior screw holes lined up so I have one long screw left over.
As I was working on the last part of the chiseling, Eric decided he should call his dad. He hasn't talked to his dad in a couple of months. Before he went to the back of the house to call his dad (away from the bang bang of my mallet) he made sure I didn't want him to take over. I told him not yet, but it might not be long as tired as I was getting. He laughed. He knows me. He knows I have a hard time letting a project go.
I finished and cleaned up, Brandon checking my work by closing the door and teasing that he was going to lock it. lol It closed perfectly and solidly! Woot!
Then I flopped onto the bed, all sweaty, exhausted and in pain but still pleased with my work. Eric was talking to his dad about how I was the woodworker of the family. Apparently he told his dad what I was doing and his dad asked who the man of the house was. heh I love challenging gender roles!
The only problem I see with using a deadbolt security plate instead of the traditional door latch plate is that there isn't the curl of metal over the wooden edge of the door frame to protect it from the latch. Eric is going to work on that.
