Lockdown

It turns out it's not so bad for the rest of you after all.  Screwfix is still doing deliveries, so there's really no excuse for slobbing about all day eating biscuits and watching cat videos on your phone (even if they were specifically sent to you by your now oh-so-much-missed friends) when you could be doing all those little projects you have always claimed you would do if you had the time.  Which, now, you do have.  Except that you don't, because you're too busy servicing the 15 new WhatsApp and Facebook groups your friends have started so that you don't lose touch with each other.

Not everything is available though.  Just before the first stage of national seizure, I was getting some more garage keys cut in a local lock shop, and I asked about the possibility of getting a spare part for the lock itself.  The bit in question is the wedgey bit that holds the door shut when it closes, which has always been missing since we moved in.  It's not a vital bit, but if it's missing you have to deliberately close the door with the handle to keep it shut.  Which is a teensy bit dull.

Anyway, the man in the lock shop was not optimistic that a part could be found (not really surprised, I can't find anything like it on the internet) but his eyes lit up a bit when I said that the front door lock is the same type, so I could bring in an example, if that would help.  He said he might have something lying around in the back of the shop - which was music to my hoarder's ears.

But then we went into self-isolation, and then all the shops closed, so I never got a chance to find out whether the things lying around in the back of his shop did include a Yale wedgey bit, or not.

So I thought I'd make one instead.  In normal times, this would just be a silly idea, but thanks to the lockdown, it's now a fully justifiable project!  Here's what the part looks like (as removed from the front door):

Yale wedgey bit

Obviously the first job is to find something to make it from.  It's not very big, but it needs to be solid and reasonably hard, which cuts down the options quite a lot.  I went for this:

it's a bracket

Cambium Networks people may recognise it as one of many, many designs of ODU bracket that have passed by (or through) the workshop in Ashburton and ended up in a scrap bin.  It's cast aluminium alloy, which is not very tough, but is easy to work.  It has enough meat in the middle for the actual wedge, and very handily features wings to hold onto it by, like this:

hold onto your wings!

After a while with a hacksaw, some files and even the small angle grinder(!) it looked like this:

And before you could say "artisanal skills with hand tools", and then complain that a drill press isn't a hand tool, and stop for a cup of tea and a biscuit, it looked like this:

mine's the shiny one

bottoms up!

Which I have to say, was quite pleasing.  Mine's a somewhat different shape on the back because it doesn't need to be reversible, and more metal around the hole is better.  There's lots of room in the lock.

I did have to remove the entire lock strip from the door to understand how to put the whole thing back together properly.  There's a trick mode where the latch shuts, and then doesn't open with the handle(!) to catch out the unwitting reassembler, but the clues are all written on the lock body - which is just as well, because it's rivetted together (ugh!) so you can't see inside.

Anyway, its back in the door now and it all works perfectly.  Smug emoji!

Which is more than can be said for the starlings.  I made another vent-style bird house and fitted it way up high, but still no takers as far as I can detect.

way up high

Perhaps they are being put off this one by the enormous red arrow outside it? Meanwhile the kitchen vent fan sounds like a bag of nails being dropped into a cement mixer again, so they obviously haven't taken the hint after all.

I nearly forgot to mention that there is another reason to make your own lock parts out of scrap - the two new keys (one for the up-and-over garage door, and one for the Yale multipoint) cost me a rather jaw-dropping £21.  What price a hard to find, genuine Yale, slightly used wedgey part, I wonder?  Still, I don't begrudge the man his £21 now because he's probably at home going bankrupt and watching cat videos like everyone else.  Or maybe he's sorting out the stuff in the back of his shop? Nah - my money's on the cat videos.