David J. Rose

By djrose007

Another "Out with the old..........."

A few months ago the lock on the fire door, between the utility room and the garage, began to get stiff to lock and unlock. Yesterday this resulted in the part of the key with the 'key wards' snapping off. This left us with a locked door to the garage with no way of opening it, even if we could have found the spare key!
I was talking to our son, Daniel, about it and how I was going to have to chisel, on the garage side of the door, to free the deadbolt part so I could replace the whole mechanism. He suggested hacksawing through the deadbolt, which would be virtually impossible if I didn't have my 'Black and Decker' reciprocating saw, just like the one in the link. It has a hacksaw blade attachment.
The bit of brass between the old lock (left picture) and the striking plate is what I managed to hacksaw off in the narrow gap between the door and the frame from the garage side of the door.
It wasn't easy, and it totally  blunted the blade but it did the job before it became totally toothless. Luckily, I have the keys to the garage doors (double garage) so that is how I could access the other side of the door, inside the garage.
I took the old lock to 'Huws Gray', formerly 'Buildbase' and compared it to locks they had in stock. Found one of exactly the same size, just had to do some drilling and chiselling due to the square spindle and keyhole being in a slightly different position to the old one.
All worked out really well and not too difficult a job in the end, once I'd spent over half an hour cutting through the deadbolt!

The extra photo is inside Lidl, on the Bristol Road, Gloucester. A lot of people have a bee in their bonnet about the increasing use of self checkout in supermarkets. I was astounded that, with only a few rolls, I was forced to use a self checkout as there was not a single manned till open. There will come a day when we are forced into not using cash at all, and I think it might happen sooner than anyone could imagine. Hopefully not in my  lifetime.

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