BACK TO BASICS The Vendetta, Op-Checks and Days Gone By spindles, and Figure 7 shows them butted against each other. Having the spindles as you see in Figure 7 is a dangerous mistake. Swivel spindles are designed so that the outside or locked spindle stays stationary and the inside or unlocked spindle can move freely and retract the latch. If you snug the spindles against one an- Figure 4. The author is holding down the lever to demonstrate how you might find it in the worst-case scenario. The Issue and the Answer The job involved swapping out escutch- eons on 45H locks. As I moved from door to door, I noticed that the installer nearly always had only hand-tightened on the “rose ring” (red arrow in Figure 3). If you do this, what sometimes happens is that the rose ring slowly loosens through nor- mal use of the lever. The lever then starts to bind against the ring, causing it stay in the down position. In Figure 4, I’m holding down the lever to demonstrate how you might find it in the worst-case scenario. This will also cause the latch to remain retracted. Let me assure you that this is not a problem with the lock; this is an issue with the installer, who blithely walks away thinking the installation is fine and dandy. If you use the spanner wrench as intended, the rose rings rarely come loose. If you don’t, it’ll be your callback. Look back at the rose ring with the arrow in Figure 3. This one was hand-tightened. Notice the small gap between the lever and the ring. Now look at the same lock in Fig- ure 5. I used the wrench to tighten down the rose rings with the lever still attached. Notice the large gap between the ring and the lever now. If you were to grab the le- 52 KEYNOTES MAY 2020 Figure 5. Notice the large gap between the ring and the lever. ver and push and pull it, you’d feel a lot of in-and-out play, which shouldn’t be there. One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that when parts become loose and are not attended to, the problem gets progressively worse and then oſten fails completely. The best example of this is loose hinge screws. Eventually, the door rubs so badly that it won’t close and latch at all. A lot of times, all it takes is tight- ening the screws to solve the problem — unless the constant movement caused the screws and holes to strip. Then you have complete failure. On the lever above, you need to close the gap to stop the play. To do this, you need to loosen the set screw on the inside lever and move the lever closer to the rose ring. I highly recommend you do this the way I’m about to show you. If you do, you might uncover a few other errors in the installation that are easy to correct. How to Fix It First loosen the set screw on the inside lever, pull it off and then pull the outside lever and spindle out of the chassis. Then take a look at the point where the inside and outside spindle come together. Figure 6 shows too much of a gap between the other, install the lock and neglect to do a complete operation check before leaving, this is really bad karma. If the outside hub is locked and the inside spindle is jammed against the outside spindle, it won’t turn and your customer will be locked in. Panic oſten ensues, and you will probably be called uncomplimentary names. What’s worse is that this problem might not manifest itself right away. Suppose you have a couple that leaves for work every day at the same time. One of them locks the door by throwing the deadbolt, and they open it when they come home. Some time goes by, and eventually the husband calls out sick and stays home, and his wife locks the door behind her on the way to work. If the husband tries to open the door to check the mail, he’s locked in because the spindle won’t turn. Here’s what you should do whenever you install or service a mortise lock that uses a swivel spindle: Turn the inside spindle until it butts against the outside spindle. Then back it off one complete 360-degree turn. Doing that pretty much guarantees you won’t have any lock-in issues. Now the inside and outside spindles will turn independently of the other. Let’s go back to that gap in Figure 5 that we want to close. So you’ve tightened the rose rings and checked the spindles, and you’re getting ready to slide the inside le- ver on and tighten it. Before you put the inside lever on, check if the indentation mark you see in Figure 8 is on the side of the spindle into which the set screw will bite into. If it is, loosen the spindle a quarter turn, as in Figure 9. WWW.ALOA.ORG
