Some metalworking

When it came time to pick out the door furniture for my new house I lucked into FREE bronze handles and escutcheon plates. Unfortunately I didn't learn until too late that the escutcheons won't work with the thumb turn spacing in standard mortise locks. And the company selling the door furniture would not sell just the locksets for the furniture. So mebbe my free stuff wasn't so free. Anyway, last week I figured out how to modify one particular brand of mortise lock in order to change the location of the thumb turn. I had to remove the rivets holding a plate onto the bolt and a steel stamping that supported the plate. I turned the plate over, tapped the bolt, and screwed the plate back onto the bolt. I then milled a new slot for the steel stamping's new location, drilled holes for the new thumb turn location, and drilled a new hole for a spring support I had to make. I welded the stamping in the new location, screwed in the new spring support, and reassembled the lock. It works perfectly. The first one was slow but the next six will go fast now that I know what I'm doing. Now all I need to do is drill the escutcheon plates for the thumb turns. It's a good thing these are just privacy locks for interior doors. All the furniture for the exterior doors works with standard mortise locks. Eric