Change or rekey · Richmond Hill
Vintage Mortise Lock Service
The interior bedroom doors on the second floor have the original mortise latches, and none of them close any more. The doors drift open, the small brass turn buttons do nothing, and the keyholes have been empty for as long as anyone can remember.
Vintage Mortise Lock Service
In plain words
Keys are the part of the job people expect to be impossible, and they rarely are. A bit key, the skeleton key style used on older doors, is cut and filed on the bench to the wards and levers of your particular case, so a lost key can be replaced from the lock itself. A round cylinder on a later mortise lock is rekeyed like any modern cylinder, or exchanged for a new cylinder of matching thread and cam if it is worn out. Either way the service ends with keys in your hand that turn the original lock, and a spare made while the case is on the bench.
How the visit goesYou bought a house with its original hardware and a bag of loose keys. Some open interior doors, some fit nothing, and the front door lock has a keyhole shaped for a key you do not have. You would like the original lock kept and made to work.
Richmond Hill
How the visit goes
The door before the lock
Before blaming a lock that may be perfectly sound, the locksmith looks at the door. With it open, the lock is cycled; with it closed, the latch and deadbolt are tried again. A lock that works open and fights when shut is telling you the door has moved. The gap around the door is checked top to bottom, the hinges are watched for a sag when the door is lifted, and the strike plate is inspected for bright wear marks where the bolt has been scraping past. In an older home with a solid wood door this is a routine finding, and correcting it is often most of the repair.
Reassembly and setting the trim
The case slides home and is screwed off, then the cylinder or keyhole escutcheon goes on, followed by the spindle, knobs and rosettes. The spindle is trimmed to length so the knobs sit against the door without pinching, and the set screws are tightened so there is no free play before the latch moves. The thumb-turn is aligned with the deadbolt tail so it throws with a light touch. Paint is cleared from the faceplate and strike edges where it was catching. Then the door is closed and the whole lock is worked from both faces with the key, the knobs and the turn, several times, listening for the latch to seat.
A lock that feels new and looks old
What you get back is the door you had, with the lock working as it was designed to. The knob returns level with a snap, the latch catches when the door is pushed shut, the deadbolt throws with a light turn of the key or the thumb-turn, and the key goes in and out without a wiggle. Nothing on the face of the door has changed except that the brass has been cleaned where it was handled. The locksmith runs through each function with you from both sides before leaving, so the standard of what has been done is something you have seen, not something you have been told.
Vintage Mortise Lock Service
In the van
- Mortise cylinder and cam
- Reproduction mortise case
- Light lock oil
- Spindle and knob set screws
- Warding files
What affects the quote
Same fees day, night or weekend
1What is actually broken inside
A clean and new springs is the lightest job. A worn hub, a cracked lever or a part that has to be fabricated to match the original adds bench time, and the assessment names which applies before any of it starts.
2How 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.
3Parts that must be ordered
A reproduction case or an unusual cylinder size may have to be ordered to measurement, which means a second visit to fit it. The quote separates the first visit from the return.
Vintage Mortise Lock Service: questions
The key turns all the way round but the bolt stays put. What is wrong?
On a cylinder mortise lock this points to the cylinder rather than the case. The set screw that holds the cylinder in the door has loosened or stripped so the whole cylinder rotates, or the cam on the back of the cylinder has worn or is the wrong shape and no longer catches the bolt lever. Both are fixed by resetting or replacing the cylinder and its set screw, and the case itself is usually fine.
Is it worth repairing an old mortise lock instead of replacing it?
Usually, yes. The mechanisms are simple and robust, and what fails is nearly always a spring, dried grease or wear on one part, all of which are repairable on a bench. Replacing the lock with a modern cylindrical set means boring a large hole through the door stile and filling the old pocket, which is more work and changes the door for good. A rebuilt case keeps the original trim and keeps the door intact.
What information helps before you come out?
Whether the door takes a skeleton-style bit key or a flat key in a round cylinder, roughly when the house was built, what the knob and bolt are doing, and whether the trouble is worse with the door closed. A photo of the faceplate in the door edge and one of the keyhole side is worth a great deal. Mention how many doors are involved and how many keys you would like afterwards.
Change or Rekey Locks
- Deadbolt InstallationYou bought a keypad deadbolt online and pulled the old one off, only to find the hole in the door…
- Lock Replacement & UpgradeThe century home's original mortise lock takes a key the size of a spoon, sticks in humid weather…
- Smart Lock InstallationHalf the evenings someone asks whether the back door got locked, and nobody is sure.
Vintage Mortise Lock Service near you
The pages that follow describe the lock services offered in Richmond Hill one by one, without sales talk. Where a service has a simpler or less involved cousin, the page says so. Where a repair will do instead of a replacement, the page says that too. The aim is for you to choose well, not to choose more.