Tubular Locks for Dummies

The keyhole of a tubular lock

There's no doubt about it: here at the Antisocial Network we get a lot of headaches attempting to read the questionable content of some of our DotD candidates. While some of them make mistakes because they simply don't have the background necessary to write about their topics, a few seem to live in a place where "alternate facts" are perfectly acceptable. Take, for instance, eHowian Alec Preble: one of his favorite tricks is to provide a general (and probably wrong) "solution" to a specific question, while citing an offline reference. The English BA pretended to know "How to Install a Tubular Lock"¹ for eHow.com when in reality he had no idea how to install a lock at all.

Preble had already pulled this trick with locks on sliding glass doors, citing a decades-old book that didn't even mention sliding glass doors. He's back, and the book also doesn't mention tubular locks. That may be why Alec couldn't properly define a tubular lock:

"Tubular locks are popular because they feature a single or double cylinder that is easy to install and can be replaced as necessary. In the past, mortise locks with large, specialized lock cases were used almost exclusively, but tubular locks require less work and less modification to the door."

Preble got that bull from some blog ("rustic girls") that confuses tubular locks with privacy locksets. In reality, a tubular lock is the sort of security lock once used on Kryptonite bike locks and still used on vending machines: the key is cylindrical instead of flat. The design is harder to pick than a conventional cylinder lock, and considered more secure – instead of being arranged in a line as in a cylinder lock, the pins that form the lock are arranged around the perimeter of the lock in a circle.

That being said, few if any home locksets are tubular designs any more, and the term "tubular lock" has come to be synonymous with "cylinder lock"; if only to differentiate the design from a mortise lock. So Preble could have been right, except that he does such a poor job of rewording the instructions he found somewhere, rubbish like

"Remove all trim screws from the old hardware and remove the knobs, cylinder and key assembly. Look inside for more retaining screws that may need to be removed. Remove the edge and strike plates. Measure the hole in the door and purchase a new lock of the same size." "...more retaining screws"? Is he kidding? And this bullshit about "purchase a new lock of the same size" is a winner, too -- too bad Alec's never run across the term "backset"! And then there's the instruction, "Insert the bevel assembly into the hole in the edge of the door with the slanted edge facing the door frame."

We presume he meant bolt assembly, not bevel assembly... but we're pretty sure anyone following his "instructions" wouldn't be able to insert the bolt, since they'd have already screwed the interior knob into place (requiring that you also install the exterior knob...)  But all this is moot because you can install tubular locks on cabinets and such – it's just that Alec was too lazy (or dumb) to do the research, so he just pretended.
No, Preble had no idea how to install a tubular lock and, unfortunately for his eHow.com readers, he was none too clear on how to install a cylinder lock, either. That's why Alec's collecting his third Dumbass of the Day, his second for bull about locks.

¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_8761043_install-tubular-lock.html

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