Miscellaneous Repairs & Modifications

A mortise-case lock can often be typified by those older locks that used the skeleton-keys, although there are many more modern versions now that don’t use skeleton-keys.

The springs in many of the older ones break over time, and of course many of the older ones have had plenty of time to break, such as 3 or 4 of them in this house. Note that the latch no longer protrudes from the lock case.

And replacement parts aren’t usually an economically viable option, given the time it might take to track them down, even if someone had some somewhere.

Hippo Hardware or Rejuvenation House Parts could potentially have something that might work, but most folks wouldn’t want to pay us to rummage through the expansive amount of boxes and drawers of old lock parts with no certainty of success. So we often propose to remove the old lock-case…

…and to cover the “mortise” (hole) with an aftermarket adapter plate made specifically for this modification.
There was some expert chiseling required on the edge of the door because the adapter-plate was longer, slightly wider and thicker than the original lock-case face-plate was.

And then we installed one these latches in each of the doors that are made for use with the old original square “spindle” or “shaft” that runs through the door from one handle to the other.
They still make these because there are some lock…

…companies like Baldwin who still makes locks that use the square spindles.
After painting the adapter-plate, you can hardly see it. This is a nice option when retaining the original handles and escutcheon-plates is a priority.