wrote:

will conceal where the power drill went out the side of the door when I
was mortissing in a new latch barrel.

And drilled the spindle hole in on the bottom line of the latch instead of
the centre line.

I thought it would be a simple job to update the door handles, but the new
ones are knobs and the old ones are levers. The knobs are too close to the
edge of the door, so I have to fit new latches. The longer latches are too
long to fit in the stiles without bursting out into the panels, so I have
to make completely new latch holes.

The handles are also sprung, and two sprung handles and a latch is too
heavy a spring action, so I am manually despringing one or both of the
handles in the hope of getting a lighter action.

Now considering that putting in a new central heating system myself might
be a touch ambitious ...

Owain

I really sympathise! I promised my wife new knobs for the front door
without thinking through the differences between knobs and handles. I
got somewhat longer latches, but without having the knobs below knee
height we are left with a knob uncomfortably near the frame. But just
about usable. Since my knobs are unspriung, I had the opposite spring
problem; had to get a latch with a much heavier spring to make up for
the loss of sprung handles. It seems cheap modern doors are really
unsuitable for knobs, which is perhaps why one doesn't see them in new
houses.

A simple job turned really difficult.


--

Roger Hayter