Tricky door knobs

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como

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Hi All,

I've just hung 4 new hardwood doors this weekend, now I need to add the knobs and catches but I'm having some trouble with fastening the knobs to the doors.
The knobs are brass ones from wickes, the problems I am having are as follows.

1. The 3 screw holes for attaching the knob to the door are obscured by the knob handle so i'm unable to get the screws in straight.

2. Because these doors are hardwood, the screws really need a pilot hole to help them along but marking out where to drill the holes is also awkward due the obscured holes.

3. I managed to get one of the knobs attached with a lot of cursing and swearing, the soft brass screws have taken a bit of a battering because of the force I had to apply the get the screws in. But there seems to be a bit of binding now because the catch doesn't spring back after I let go of the handle.

4. The instructions that came with the door knobs are pants and just dont help at all.

Is there some obvious solution that I'm missing here? I would appreciate it if anyone could offer some advice to this problem.

Thanks in advance

Mark
 
I've had similar problems and that's just on softwood doors. I think you have to drive the screws in at an angle, there doesn't seem to be anything else for it.
There should be one silver screw screw amongst the brass ones. This has the same thread and you drive this in first to form a hole. Then remove it and use the brass screws which will go in a whole lot easier. A pilot hole is still necessary though. Can you sharpen your pencil with a long lead to mark the pilot holes or use the tip of the screw to make a point?
The catch is probably binding because the the handle you've scrwed in has pulled the rod out of line. I'm not sure of the easy solution here apart from being really careful when you mark up the positioning. You might be able to loosen up a screw slightly which could help.
Darren
 
Ah, the old Impossible Knobs routine, eh?

This is very common, and I can't for the life of me understand why they are designed like this.

It's a while since I've done this, but IIRC I pushed the crews in by hand until they marked the door and I could then drill a pilot hole. I bet the screws are a straight slot, and therefore even more prone to slippage when the screwdriver isn't straight, am I right? You can get bent screwdivers, either cranked or flexible, but I've never used them and I don't know how well they perform.

If the screws are dome-head countersunk, as opposed to flat-head countersink, you may be able to drill the pilot holes slightly radially, so that you can drill straight in line with the screw, even if it is not pependicular to the door.

Unfortunately, I think you just have to do the best you can.
Happy cursing.
Steve
 
Thanks for quick response guys, I've just been pondering over this and I think I may have answered my own question. How about if I remove the knob from the backplate (I'm sure it's only held in place with a spring clip, will have to check when I get home) then use the backplate to template all the holes for each door.

What do you think?
 
You could make a paper template from the back plate, this will allow you to position and pilot the holes.

Bean
 
Thanks Bean, I did think about that, but the back plate is hollow and about 12mm deep so it would be difficult to line up holes on the paper with the holes on the outside of the backplate.
I think I would still need to get the knob off the make the template from the outside of the backplate. Does that make sense???
 
I think getting the knob off would be the right thing. You might take some scraps and knock up a little jig for locating the holes for drilling so you can zip around, drill the holes and stick the hardware in.
 
I do it by marking the screw holes, remove knob & pilot then screw the screws into door & take out with a normal screwdriver. Then place Knob in position and replace the screws first by finger then tighten using a ratchet that takes the 1/4" hex screwdriver bits like this

Jason
 
como":2t7sly4x said:
Thanks Bean, I did think about that, but the back plate is hollow and about 12mm deep so it would be difficult to line up holes on the paper with the holes on the outside of the backplate.
I think I would still need to get the knob off the make the template from the outside of the backplate. Does that make sense???

If you have a scanner you can often get a pretty good image that is accurate enough to use as a template. I even use this method for profiles for turning and tool handles etc.
 

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