Lock on an Interior Edwardian Door

[gareth]

Hello,

I've got original Edwardian pine doors in my house and each one has a lock on but I don't have any keys.

Does anybody have an idea if it's possible to obtain keys for the locks? It's the type where the mechanism is on the outside of the door, and is about 4 x 6 inches.

Gareth

 

[Gervase]

If the locks are screwed rather than nailed, take one off and take it to your local key-cutting place. The keys for such locks are incredibly simple, and you may find that the right-sized blank will turn the lever.

 

[Geoff Flegg]

I'd echo what Gervase said. My house isn't much older than yours - I took the lock into a local Timpsons key cutting place, got them to cut a blank roughly to size then took it home and filed it down myself to the right shape - took about an hour, an easy enough job. It definitely needed a shaped key in my case, not just a blank, but you didn't need to be Einstein to work the shape out!

The key cutting shop said they could send the lock away to get a key made if I wanted, for a price of course.

Why do you want the keys? If it's for extra security then I really would not recommend locking internal doors - if an intruder gets into your house they will just kick internal doors through and create more damage, my in-laws are in the security business and they have seen this several times. In my case I wanted a key for the bathroom door so I didn't need to cut chunks out of the architrave to fit a privacy bolt.

Geoff