Change or rekey · Forest Hills
Vintage Mortise Lock Service in Forest Hills
After a wet summer the entry door sits lower in its frame. The lock works perfectly when the door is open, but with it shut you have to lift the handle and shoulder the door to get the deadbolt to throw.
Vintage Mortise Lock Service
In plain words
Where the door has moved, the lock gets blamed. Solid wood doors in older houses swell in humid weather, shrink in winter and settle on their hinges, and a mortise lock that was set decades ago ends up with its latch and bolt aiming a little below the strike. Part of every vintage lock service is reading how the door hangs, tightening or packing the hinges, and moving or filing the strike so the latch catches and the bolt throws without lifting the handle. Often that alignment work, plus a clean and new springs, is the entire repair, and the customer gets back a door that closes with one hand.
How the visit goesSomeone painted the door years ago without removing the hardware. The faceplate, the strike and the little thumb-turn are all under several coats, the deadbolt scrapes when it moves, and the knob is stiff enough to leave marks on your hand.
Forest Hills
How the visit goes
Who owns the door
The first check has nothing to do with the lock. The locksmith confirms that the person asking for the work owns the home or lawfully lives in it, since a serviced lock and a freshly cut key are, in the end, a way into someone's house. Photo identification and something tying you to the address usually settles it in a moment. On a rental, the landlord and the tenant are expected to agree on lock changes and share keys, so the locksmith asks who should hold the new bit keys or cylinder keys and notes it. This small formality protects the household as much as anyone, and it is done before a screwdriver comes out.
Putting the door edge right
Before the case goes back, the pocket and screw holes get whatever attention the check turned up. Stripped holes are drilled out, plugged with glued hardwood dowel and re-drilled so the faceplate screws bite. A pocket that has loosened is packed with a thin hardwood shim glued to one wall so the case sits tight. A split at the edge is glued and clamped. None of this changes the door's appearance; it simply gives the rebuilt lock something solid to sit in, which matters because a case that shifts in its pocket will bind the spindle and undo the bench work in a few months.
Parts, records and the house file
Anything that came out of the lock, a broken spring, a worn lever, the old cylinder, is offered to you rather than thrown away; some owners keep the originals with the house's papers. The locksmith leaves a short account of what was done: the case type and size, what was replaced, whether keys were made or a cylinder rekeyed, and how the strike was adjusted. For a designated heritage property this record shows the original hardware was retained. For everyone else it is simply the sheet you hand to the next locksmith, or the next owner, so nobody has to rediscover what is inside the door.
Vintage Mortise Lock Service
In the van
- Cylinder set screw
- Reproduction mortise case
- Latch and hub springs
- Hub followers and lever packs
- Deadbolt lever springs
What affects the quote
Same fees day, night or weekend
1How many keys you want
Bit keys are made individually by hand and cylinder keys are cut per copy, so the count you ask for is a line of its own. Decide who in the household needs one before the visit.
2Paint and seized parts
Hardware buried under decades of paint takes time to free and clean without damage. A faceplate, strike and thumb-turn that have to be stripped back add to the visit and are noted in the quote.
3Bit key or cylinder lock
A bit-key case has keys filed by hand on the bench, while a cylinder lock is rekeyed or fitted with a new cylinder on a key machine. The two take different time and materials, and the quote follows.
Vintage Mortise Lock Service: questions
Can you make a key for a lock that has none?
Yes. A bit key is cut to the lock rather than copied from another key: the locksmith chooses a blank of the right size and files the bit until it clears the wards and lifts the levers inside your case, testing as they go. A pin-tumbler cylinder on a later lock is decoded or rekeyed and keys cut to it. Bring any loose keys that came with the house, since one may be close enough to serve as a starting pattern.
What exactly is a mortise lock?
It is a lock built as a flat rectangular case that sits inside a pocket cut into the edge of the door, rather than through a round hole bored across it. The case holds the latch, usually a deadbolt, the hub the knob spindle turns, and the springs. On the faces of the door you see the knobs, decorative plates and either a keyhole for a bit key or a round cylinder. Most doors built before the middle of the last century carry one.
Why does my knob turn without moving the latch?
Most often the square hole in the hub inside the case has rounded with age, or the spindle has worn, so the knob turns a good way before it grips. Loose knob set screws produce the same slack. Less often a latch spring has broken and the latch is simply sitting inside the door. All of these are corrected during service by replacing the spindle and screws, bushing or replacing the hub, or fitting a new spring.
Change or Rekey Locks
Vintage Mortise Lock Service near you
Choose a service to see how it works in Forest Hills. Each page explains the situation it suits, what the locksmith looks at first, how the job is done, and how to look after the hardware afterwards. If your problem sits between two services, either page will get you to the right conversation.