Back in 2003, when we bought this old place in the woods and moved up here, Elaine and I tired of the previous owners having a lock on every door that was keyed differently. Although it was a simple double-wide and an open carport big enough for a diesel pusher RV, there were still three keys for three doors. Then four…then five… You know how these things go.
A few years went by and one of the locks failed. A quick trip to Sutherland’s (at the time they had a store in Palestine, TX), plus a few minutes with a Phillips head, and good as new.
And then the next one failed a year or two on. We might have had the Lowes open by now – but again, it was a simple fix.
Finally, about 2010, or so, another failed and I was getting sick of the collection of unlabeled keys that were piling up in “the key drawer.”
The project – on the list from about 2006 – is finally done.
Half-Right Solution
A 2010 break was misjudgement, too. Elaine and I decided to “common key” the entire house. It was not expensive, but we’re both terrible when it comes to throwing “perfectly good” hardware away.
Still, we bought a 3-lock package and (on my younger sister’s advise) updated to ADA-compatible lever style knobs.
Things were fine -if you didn’t mind the pants sagging from the key collection that had to be carried. Only one key for three house locks, but there were two on the shop, two on the guest room, plus the storage/pantry building…not to mention the generator key, a few padlocks… these things add up. Two or three vehicles, a tractor, the riding mower…
Finally, I got to?
The Right Fix
As you can see there on the right, a simple, squarish, and frankly much more sturdy lock now graces the shop door.
Total time to install? Maybe 7-minutes. Depends on how we score putting tools away. (Is that part of “job time” or is that a “separate activity?”)
One of the most interesting changes in hardware over my lifetime has been the packaging revolution in tools and hardware.
When I started this game of door handle roulette, locks came in a package of 1.
You have to be a bit picky (pardon the lock pun!) about your shopping. Because not all door handles are the same.
Interior Sets: These have no place on an outside door – they won’t handle the weather. They come in keyed or un, and you can find them as all key differently, or all keyed the same, up to about 10 interior doors is not that uncommon.
Frankly, no idea why you would have so many doors locked on the inside of a home – we’re the kind who won’t let anyone in the house that we can’t trust explicitly. Strangers don’t get past even the gate, let alone in the house!
Thing to remember is that exterior door locks work on the inside, but interior door sets don’t work on the outside.
Bathroom Sets: These generally come with a twist lock or push-button on the inside. They have a small hole facing into the home interior. Come with a little bent wire pinkus which is used because they require (occasionally) just a bit more pressure than comes from a household paperclip. (Our 12-volume set “Improvised Welding Rod from paperclips” will be picked up by a major publishing house here any minute.)
“Keyed-alike” is the secret sauce in search engines.
Exterior Door Sets: Here we see the aging marvel performing the installaton of the screen porch exterior door.
If this was really a hard job, do you think Elaine would let me do it?
Please note the Tool Slut Door Gear: That screwdriver is one of the fancy DeWalt gyroscopic screwdrivers. You power it and then it turns automatically in the direction you twist your wrist. At $141, some might think it overpriced. (Show of hands?) And their marketing department gave it a nylon bag? Seriously? Who on God’s green Earth carries a “screwdriver bag?” (Show of hands on this? Nope – no crazies counted…) Maybe use the bag to pack a sandwich in as brand-schwag on the job site? (Shakes his head.)
Ure’s Golden Gotcha of the Week
Now we get to the fine study of error avoidance. Because YES! You can screw it up. Even something as simple as changing out a half dozen door locks.
I did.
See how simple the installation should be?
Three pieces – that’s all there is to it. You unscrew the interior side, pull it off. Then pull the exterior side. And – if necessary – replace the latch mechanism. (Sometimes in a frenzy of lock replacements, you will get luck and the previous latched will fix. Which gives you more useless shit to stack up in the hardware section of your shop.
Impossible to cluster it, right?
No.
See on the 180 room door, I put in the new latch and it stuck out just a tiny amount more than the previous. I mean RCH difference. So, all assembled I did a “test shut and open.”
Except for the OPEN part didn’t and wouldn’t. Too snug to budge and the latch was not going to retract far enough.
Crap Fire and Save Matches Time
With the exterior door to the 180 room securely shut – and with only five-hours left until daily wine time – the pressure was on.
Two strategies came to mind. Crawl into the 180 room from the outside (breaking another lock to do that). then kicking the door it…
Or, I could remove the door which was now fitting too damn snugly. A few minutes with a pocketknife and a spackle knife proved nothing, except that I’d need a lot more arm-strong.
Off to the shop for additional tools: a short (small diameter) Phillips works for tapping up the door hinge bolts. Then a pry bar to pry the jammed door out of its frame.
Once it was freed of course, the lock was loosened and adjustment of the striker plate could be made. Wine was not delayed!
On most hinges the “middle 2 fingers” are the door side. The top, middle, and lower go to the house side. Don’pull pull too hard on those or you will tip your house over.
The four volume “America’s funniest home videos of 76-year old men removing exterior doors…” should be available in time for Christmas gift giving.
The Marvelous Table Adventure
A few weeks back, I mentioned the super-deal Vevor had on a stainless roll-around work table. Suitable for shop of kitchen, it was only $60 bucks and change.
No, assembling a table is not how most mystics achieve Nirvana. But a confirmed tool slut? You bet!
First, there was a nut that went on a long bolt through the table leg that needed to be held on the back side. Of course, most NTS – non tool sluts – would just grab a Crescent or a 1/4″ drive with metrics and be done.
No! We wouldn’t hear of it!
Instead, I grabbed the “bike wrench” which – by the grace of ontology – actually fit something. The angles fit in just snug onto the nut that needed backing. This thing (and you can find others like it) had been on a nail on the shop wall since 2018 awaiting deployment. This is the first (and only) time it was the Perfect Tool.
The second Nirvana generator came when Elaine said yes, she loved the table, too. Especially my idea to make it into a “cooking gear” table. Get all my cooking spices and liquors and such (like the meat thermometer collelction) off the right-hand stove counter.
The table doesn’t have edging, so things can be knocked off. So for the wines and liquors, I decided to get one of those stainless trays that baristas use to hold the coffee flavors.
SHOP TOOL NAME: These booze (and flavor) bottle trays are called “speed rails.” How the hell I got through a billion dollars worth of alcohol without knowing the technical name for such gear is a fascinating study in ETOH-induced sensory deprivation. A short 15-incher like this one may be the answer. What was the question, again?
Oh – Elaine wasn’t as keen on my other kitchen tool table suggestion: I proposed we install an 8-inch mechanics vise on the table too. You know, to hold meat (say a ham bone) you’re trimming… Still, I was going better than the Dodgers.
Experimental Over-Engineering
My consigliere suggested (a couple of visits back) that we put high visibility stair treads on at least the stairs down to the carport (14 of ’em),
Thing is, I always catch my shoe on non-skid pads like tha, So this week, an experiment began with the new super-step for the generator shed. Talk about simple?
This is a quick (one pass) with some of that rubber spray-on roofing patch. Like you should have a can or two of around for emergencies.
Not sure how well it will wear, but the whole stair spraying can be done on a warm day in less than 6-minutes. Depending on how particular you are about over-spray. I’m sure if you want to be pin neat and mask it all off proper-like, you could stretch it into an hour.
Us? We have urgent wine to consume. Over-spray vs. Burgundy…hmm…wine wins.
Useful to Know
Reader Eleanor was asking how our “reduced food” approach to de-catifying (if that’s a word) from our all-time peak of 21 feral cats was going.
Not well. Elaine has a heart of gold. But even though all through breakfast she promises to withhold food from the feral cat colony, she’s softened by noon, most days.
Still, smaller portions, too and we’re down to a dozen or so still too lazy to go find field mice. The tall grasses are in seed and if the cat can’t find food now, take it up with God.
The Reader Short Stories Department is under construction over here. I promised but I didn’t mention when, did I?
And we assume you’ve been to the Visitors Center at least once?
Write when you get rich,
George@Ure.net
The Matrix – “Hi, I’m The Keymaker”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gDR0WKNhj0
The Reality – “Hi, I’m Ure worst nightmare –
https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2025.10/original/68fddbb62030276a8b7750a5.jpg
“Natasha, we must obliterate the Moose & Squirrel”
I see Ure LGM-35A Sentinel, and raise You 1 nuclear turbojet.
Game On, yanks.
‘Lassie’ and ‘Lost in Space’ actress June Lockhart dead at 100…
Let Elaine know she’ll get there too.
Yes, have sprayed rubbery stuff on wooden stairs.
Yes, have used the cute round wrench once in 20 years.
And “You power it and then it turns automatically in the direction you twist your wrist” — One good turn deserves another?
Easy does it Slugger, might want to “prelube” things, prior to twisting and turning Ure “driver”.
Lord knows friction burns always rub me the wrong way, so I try to avoid at all costs..
Sy Borg-https://youtu.be/4Yngc8DB86U?si=Ouc1THzzoQGQ4cb7
If you have a lock-up closet or safe space with a deadbolt, then use a different key for that. And don’t use a double cylinder deadbolt in any space with no window exit. Deadbolts can fail catastrophically in the locked position, with no real warning. Don’t ask me how I know this.
Found that nut I lost from the Friday assembly project gone in the ditch. It was sitting in the middle of the concrete floor where I has looked umpteen times with overhead lights plus a flashlight. But I will have spares later today.
A note from a ham friend patent lawyer I met in person once. Peak Prosperity circulated it today:
“Collapse of the American Empire is irreversible and accelerating. Maybe it is not worth our time to dwell so much on the details of this fascinating process since we need to focus on our own resilience.
A major aspect of American collapse is the belief in a fantasy based on extrapolation of the past.
The Fantasy: China cannot invent anything; they only steal American technology. So, the US can merely steal Nexperia and block export of Nvidia chips to China, block Chinese students and experts from studying and working in the US, and prevent the import of Chinese drones, since superior American technology will replace that and America will be “on top” again. Same with other fields. Thus, China, which relies on superior American brains, will wither on the vine.
The reality: For more than 10-15 years, China has been out-inventing Americans and is way ahead in most fields. Blocking imports from China will only exacerbate the inferiority of products and technology in America. This is my observation as a patent attorney. As an American refugee living overseas, I have been buying Chinese farm equipment at about a 5x lower cost than in the US, and I notice the quality improving. Europeans and Americans refuse to consider regulatory approval of new passenger jets from China, so the majority of the world (outside Europe/US) will enjoy lower-cost jet aircraft.
By the way, Nexperia has fabs in Germany and England. I have been buying advanced (newly introduced to market) gallium nitride transistors from Nexperia’s German fab because they are state-of-the-art and super great for my application. I understand that perhaps most of that stuff is finished off and packaged in China. Also, virtually all legacy chips (most of Nexperia’s sales) are NOT state-of-the-art and are manufactured in China, which is focusing on getting to the top of that field. When I lived in China during COVID, I tried to buy state-of-the-art power chips but was told that they had only a handful because manufacturing efficiencies were behind those from the West. This is a gap that is being closed, and perhaps Nexperia was a pawn in that operation.
The collapsing American empire is walling itself off from the rest of the world, but this is a good thing from an objective view. The emerging middle classes around the world are buying inexpensive and efficient air conditioners and very energy efficient cars from China, which are not allowed in Europe and North America. This is a good thing, because the (American-minority) empire collapse will not bring down the rest of the world, which is weaning itself off of older American technology and fiat currency. Hopefully, the American collapse will just be a blip in world history. I recommend that people visit China and see for themselves, as their tourism industry is opening up.
The selective collapse of American banking/government/military is the best possible outcome and could be celebrated by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and other advancing countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, etc., who are methodically insulating themselves from corrupt American bankers and their purchased politicians during this slow process. Gradual abandonment of the US dollar and reversion to greater reliance on a local countries’ wealth and gold backing is a good way to move ahead and not get caught in the undertow of a collapsing America.
The politicians and business managers in America are living in a dream world, and whether we have Trump or not will make little difference, in my opinion. I suggest you listen to what the president of Ford Motor said upon visiting China recently.
I permanently migrated out of the US about 12 years ago because the legal system was so profoundly corrupt, with no hope of fixing, that the best thing would be for a complete collapse of the country so that reasonable people might start it up again. Entropy increases, and you cannot reverse the extreme rot that permeates all aspects of American politics and banking. In this context, discussing Trump’s antics is just an energy- and time-wasting diversion. The sooner the collapse is over, the faster we can move on to something better. Hand wringing (in my opinion) should be replaced by philosophical debate, such as that presented by Charles Hugh Smith at his oftwominds website, and serious, practical resilience – not candle making at home, but LED procurement and long-term energy solutions (as an example). Those in America who have a real relationship with the Asian countries that create wealth will have a better long-term future. Perhaps this should be a factor in long term planning.
~ Mots”
No china pollution control, health care, social security, defense, research and development in Christian industries. Post obama all these are now to be deleted
Hmmm..collapse of the Empire irreversible.. hmmm what does the moron think.. eebie geebies the sports are about to speak..Bullwinkle moose on this thought is your friend right…. my thought is..We’ve crossed the tipping point. The American Empire’s collapse isn’t just accelerating—it’s being ignored by those who believe the past guarantees the future if it isn’t in their scope of life experiences it doesn’t exist..the big beautiful bill.. an optic illusion to push the noodle while rolling the big dice to see if it can be flipped. We as a country chase fantasies of dominance while neglecting the foundation and the needs of the laboring class..the essentials Adolph covered this in his opening page in his second secret book.. the wage earners, the elderly, the backbone of resilience. I’ve seen the designs of tomorrow emerge from cultures rich in ethics, family, and discipline—while here, we compound the burden on those who labor, expecting them to carry the weight of greed. The tower cannot stand when its base is fractured. “Let them eat cake” echoes again, but this time, the crumble is systemic. Resilience begins not with denial, but with truth—and the truth is, we must build from the bottom up, or not at all.We are no longer approaching the tipping point—we are living within it events and the debts are escalating compounding as we speak. The signs are not subtle either we have a fractured infrastructure, eroded and escalation of trust lost in political leaders that cant achieve anything or even show up for work on a regular basis..loss of trust in institutions,advancing ecological destabilization through urban expansion, and economic systems stretched beyond their ethical limits of debt. What defines this moment is not just collapse, but the fact that those political leaders constant refusal to acknowledge any of it or care enough to even try and fix it. The fantasy of endless growth persists while the foundation of the country and —the security of the wage earners, the elders, the caretakers—is crumbling under compounded strain and neglect. History teaches that empires fall not from external conquest, but from internal neglect by those that held positions to work the problems of the members of the civilization. when the needs of the many are sacrificed for the ambitions of the few, and when resilience is mistaken for inevitability. To navigate this threshold requires not panic, but clarityand the willingness to stand and get the job done. not nostalgia, but stewardship. The future will not be inherited—it must be rebuilt from the ashes. yes we are on the rollercoaster.. I believe your friend is correct..
I love the new locks.. we use code locks… re-keying locks is easy.. and cheaper than buying multiple locks..although I will look for those type of Locke and knob sets..
for the wine holder… I’m playing with this design ..
https://www.amazon.com/TRUDING-Countertop-Wine-Rack-Freestanding/dp/B0CRVQM6X8/ref=ast_sto_dp_puis?th=1
but what I am going to do is make it out of cardboard..way cheaper and can be made to fit anywhere..right now our television stand is sitting on a one day build dresser..when my older grandson was in high school freshman shop class.. he wanted to build a dresser..but his idea was a monstrosity that would require a Crain and the removal of a wall..so the daughter asked if I could show him the proper way..we went out to do it and the teacher became the student.. I sent him for shaper routing bits and he grabbed the good expensive set..I said no honey that’s the good set grab this old set over there..and his fourteen year old looking at me with a quizical expression asks me.. who are you saving them for…the epiphany of learning ..oh your right hun grab the good stuff..we built a dresser..nothing special its a quick cobble..but the wife seen an optimist fireplace in a hotel room we stayed in on a staycation.. ( amazing time got to shoot the shat with my so get of choice Eric. ) what a nice down to earth guy to.. we had an adult beverage the casino security drooling over meeting him and convinced the casino bar musicians to play a good polka.. lollol lol it was wonderful night..my wife got to do what she liked doing throwing away the coins given..
https://youtu.be/JxPj3GAYYZ0?si=qMA8eYsEF7EsqqME
anyway I googled and awed over the optimist fireplace and the boss hinted shed like a new tv stand and a fireplace humidifier..
Hi George
Up North Farmer
The lever handles are great except our dog Mikey can open them easily.
He has a lot of friends who think he is a genius, and learn his tricks!
Kinda like the former open boarder problem!!!!!
73
Enjoy
Dang y’oughta run ‘im fer congress