Mortise Locks for the DIY Dummy

Mortise Lock

If they weren't so undeniably sad, we would probably find many of the posts we nominate for DotD to be hilarious – but then we remember that some moron assembled a bunch of meaningless (or worse, dangerous) words with the sole purpose of lining his or her pockets. And that makes us mad... so, without further ado, here's today's candidate: three-time dumbass Soren Bagley, spreading his incompetence ever wider with a post at HomeSteady.com titled "How to Install a Mortise Lock."¹ Duh...

Oddly enough, although most eHowians provide an overview of the company making a product and history of its usage, Bagley doesn't even bother to explain what a mortise lock is in his introduction, except to differentiate it from other locks  thusly:

"Mortise locks are not as common as standard cylindrical locks, but they can have distinct advantages over their more conventional counterparts"...

...which is a little misleading: mortise locks are an earlier version of locks than the cylinder (not "cylindrical") lock, and their chief difference is that they require a pocket cut into the edge of the door. That's a point Soren fails to make. Instead of introducing the installation technique (which Bagley solemnly intones, "is no light task"), he launches right into the process. For some reason, however, he appears to assume that you're installing a salvaged lockset. Otherwise, all he'd have to do is tell you to RTFM -- a modern lockset would come with a template and installation instructions. But no, Soren just provides (half-assed) instructions like "Determine the proper size spade bit. To do this, hold the spade against the widest part of the interior of the mortise lock." -- Huh? shouldn't you just, we dunno, measure the lock's thickness? "Hold the mortise lock against the door in the position that it will sit when it's installed." Ummm, dude -- where's it supposed to be installed? and what do we do once we've held it there? shouldn't we, maybe, measure the depth? "Drill the Hole: Measure the height of the hole that will be drilled." We give up: what's that mean? "Tape the spade bit so that it will only drill to the appropriate depth. Do do this, take the depth of the hole to be drilled... and mark the same depth onto the drill bit. Tape the drill bit from the base of the bit upward to this mark." A) how do you measure a spade bit and B) how does taping the bit shank keep it from drilling beyond "the appropriate depth"? Idiot.

Bagley's instructions, which he clearly cribbed from a site written by someone who knows how to install a mortise lock (or perhaps from installation instructions for a modern lock) are both clumsy and incomplete. Those who want to install a vintage lockset would be better served by simply going to "This Old House" than trying to follow instructions (with totally useless images) cobbled together by our Dumbass of the Day.

Oh, and Soren? that "notch" you continually talk about? It's what's known in the trade as a mortise -- which is why this lock is known as a "mortise lock": idiot.

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_5002028_install-mortise-lock.html

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