Can a rim lock be fitted to a door the "wrong way"

[DIYNotIan]

Hi there

I am buying three new doors for the downstairs of my house, all of which lead into rooms from the same hallway. All the doors can therefore be seen at the same time. As such, we want them to all look the same.

Trouble is that one of the doors opens into the room you go into, while the other 2 open outward (into the hallway). We were going to go for thumb latches, but we've ruled these out now because we realised we would have to have them fitted in opposite ways because of the different ways the doors open.

So we are now thinking about going for rimlocks. I know how this would be fitted to the door which opens into the room - i.e. with a keep on the inside of the room.

But how would they be fit to the other doors? Would it be possible to fit them so that they still look the same as the other door (with the big box section on the room side of the door)?

Hope this all makes sense!?!?!

Many thanks

Max

 

[JohnD]

some locks have a reversible latch. You open the case and turn the latchbolt over so the bevel faces the opposite way. If it is a rimlock you also have to buy or fabicate a staple for the frame which has a very long tongue to reach to the far side of the frame. Unless you buy very expensive rimlocks ths is unlikely to be available but you might be able to snip and bend a piece of brass sheet to shape.

the latchbolts in rimlocks are usualy steel stampings with a brass bevel riveted to the end, and less likely to be designed to reverse, as is common in mortice sashlocks.

There are 4-lever rimlocks used on some Utilities Cabins that are designed to be used on the inside of outward-opening doors, but I do not think they have a latch.

You might consider removing the latchbolt from your rimlock, and maybe fitting a tubular mortice latch to be operated by the same knob and spindle. It would not be visually obtrusive.

 

[foxhole]

Any reason you cannot use conventional door gear? sash-lock etc?

 

[DIYNotIan]

some locks have a reversible latch. You open the case and turn the latchbolt over so the bevel faces the opposite way. If it is a rimlock you also have to buy or fabicate a staple for the frame which has a very long tongue to reach to the far side of the frame. Unless you buy very expensive rimlocks ths is unlikely to be available but you might be able to snip and bend a piece of brass sheet to shape.

the latchbolts in rimlocks are usualy steel stampings with a brass bevel riveted to the end, and less likely to be designed to reverse, as is common in mortice sashlocks.

There are 4-lever rimlocks used on some Utilities Cabins that are designed to be used on the inside of outward-opening doors, but I do not think they have a latch.

You might consider removing the latchbolt from your rimlock, and maybe fitting a tubular mortice latch to be operated by the same knob and spindle. It would not be visually obtrusive.

Many thanks for taking the time to respond and help. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to DIY and as such I did not follow all of what you are saying. Any chance you (or someone else) could expand a little so I can get my hand around it?

- RE: reversible catch. I'm not sure why this would be needed as the bevel would approach the frame from the same position on every door....

- RE: "staple for the frame which has a very long tongue" Was not sure what this bit meant, but sounds interesting...

- RE: other bits. Confused by them as well I'm afraid. Sorry!

Any reason you cannot use conventional door gear? sash-lock etc?

We are going for ledge and brace type doors. I've been told it's not possible to fit conventional door gear in these. Is that correct?

________________________________________________________________

Just in case my first post was not clear, here's an absolutely awful picture, but it should help to illustrate things hopefully. The old handle is still on the door at the moment. Can the rimlock be fitted in the way shown?

Untitled

• DIYNotIan
• 27 Sep 2011
• 1

So the issue (from what I can tell) is not so much that the latch will need reversing. It's more that the latch (if that's the right term) won't be able to go into a keep, but rather will need to spring into a hole somewhere around where the wooden door stop strip current is.


Thanks again for all the help. Much appreciated.

 

[foxhole]

The rimlock is fitted internally regardless of which way the door opens.

 

[Alarm]

Well for security I would agree. OP can fit it as suggested but it will look sh1te.
Fit mortise sash locks as suggested, far better.

Also remember if your ever broken into ( And I hope you are not), locked internal doors will be kicked open.

 

[DIYNotIan]

@JohnD - any further thoughts mate if you don't mind?

@foxhole - what do you mean by fitted internally? I'm a bit confused I'm afraid! Do you mean the mechanics of it are encased in the black box section?

@Alarm - this is an internal door and we have no plans to ever lock it. Not sure where the idea that we would want to lock it has come from... Also, as mentioned above, I thought things like sash locks were not possible with ledge and brace doors. Is that right?

Thanks all

Max

 

[ladylola]

By internally fitted foxhole means the lock is fitted to the side of the door that opens into the room.Trying to fit the lock externally will be a lot of work for something that won't look right in the end.
It may have help if you had said the doors were ledged and braced in your first post.
Yes you can fit sash locks / mortice locks to a L&B door by making up a lock block i.e. a block of timber which has the lock cut into it and then screwed to the inside face of the door normally adjacent to the middle rail.

 

[JohnD]

as you are not going to use the deadlock part of your rimlock, and the latch part will be tricky to fit, I'd suggest fixing the lock case to the door as an ornament, with a tubular latch in the door, operated by a knob with the spindle passing through the rimlock body.

Tubular latches are available in quite a range of odd sizes, although 63mm in the most popular. You will need to get one with a backset matching the backset of the knob spindle in your rimlock.

If you want to see a typical tubular latch, there will most likely be one in your old door. You drill an 18mm hole (or thereabouts) into the edge of the door to accomodate it. In your case, do it adjacent to the centre ledge of your new LBF door, otherwise screw and glue a lock block to the edge to prevent it splitting.

edited
having looked again at your latest picture, you could set the rimlock back from the door edge enough for the latch not to touch the door lining ("frame") and to engage in the staple ("keep") which you would fix to the stop, perhaps with some chiselling to make it fit.