by bobhenry » Wed Dec 26, 2012 8:34 am
Christmas day was just me and the dog so I decided to utilize my time and get the doors for the caboose FULLY functional.
A horrific wind storm a few days earlier has torn the temporarly installed rear door off off its hinges. I had installed it as a weather barrier and had just used one drywall screw in the top and bottom hinge. I had not even installed door stops. The door was in swing but the vacuum created by the wind sucked the door outward and pryed the screwheads thru the hinge holes as they were a bit undersized.
Well I decided to replace the door with a narrower 15 lite door and carried it out side and while doing so, realized this was an interior french door with no insulated glass. Not wanting to give up the effeciency of an insulated door I decided to use the original door that I had carried to the garage. So retriving the originally installed door I weighed my options. Since I was building my own opening I took the opportunity to make the door an outswing. The observation platform allowed me this luxuary , and was a great way to save some interior space. This required reversing the hanging hinges removing the passage lock and the dead bolt and reversing all of them. I temporarily hung the door and marked the hinges for mortising. It was then removed and I spent the next 30 minutes looking for one of the 3 good wood chisles I own, all to no avail. So being resourceful I removed the iron form a small block plane and use it. It actually worked as well or better than a chisle despite not having a handle for control. Mortised the hinges and reinstalled the door and all was good. I cut and installed the door stops. Missing a passage lock catch I remembered a brand new unopend passage lock set I had found during the hunt for my chisles. I retreived it and was very excited that it was toatlly complete with keys, so I removed the old passage lock set and installed this new one. This one had the florentine lever, which I much prefered , rather than a round knob . The rear door now FULLY operational with all stops installed and lockable my attention turned to the side door. It came with the old style lock and I really liked the look so I measured carefully and installed a passage lock catch plate by drilling trimming and mortising this hardware. Although I could locate no dead bolt catch plate I did go ahead and drill for the deadbolt as well. I had gotten lucky at Goodwill last week and purchased a white super heavy duty grab bar ( 99 cents) . I installed it on the exterior side wall within reach of the steps so as to be able to use it for a stabilizer when climbing the 3 ice and snow covered side steps.
This doesnt really sound like much work but it did exhaust 3-4 hours and I was ready to go inside and get out of the cold. A couple Christmas highballs and some boiled hot dogs for dinner and I settled in to soak up the heat from the wood stove and stare at the idiot box trying to avoid anything Christmas.
Bah - Hum - Bug Bob
Growing older but not up !