Mortise Lock Repair
The Practicality of 3D Printing
The lock on the front door of my 100+ year old house decided to break one day. Eventually my mom had me take the lock out of the door to discover that it was a mortise lock. This is a lock box style security device that embeds itself in the profile of the door itself. Finding a new one to match this 100 year old lock box would prove to be challenging. The local locksmith had replacement boxes for $900 and up, and we would have to replace the massive oak front door. The attempted a fix on the lock which broke after a week. So I decided to put my 5 year, $64k a year education to use and measured the original broken part with some calipers. Below are some pictures of the CAD model I developed. I converted the file to an .STL file and sent it off to a metal 3-D printing website. In 2 weeks, we received the part which I had designed slightly larger than needed (due to inaccuracies in the tolerancing of 3-D printed parts). I grinded down some edges and placed it in the lock. It worked even better than before and it only costed me $25, saving a very old lock!
The lock on the front door of my 100+ year old house decided to break one day. Eventually my mom had me take the lock out of the door to discover that it was a mortise lock. This is a lock box style security device that embeds itself in the profile of the door itself. Finding a new one to match this 100 year old lock box would prove to be challenging. The local locksmith had replacement boxes for $900 and up, and we would have to replace the massive oak front door. The attempted a fix on the lock which broke after a week. So I decided to put my 5 year, $64k a year education to use and measured the original broken part with some calipers. Below are some pictures of the CAD model I developed. I converted the file to an .STL file and sent it off to a metal 3-D printing website. In 2 weeks, we received the part which I had designed slightly larger than needed (due to inaccuracies in the tolerancing of 3-D printed parts). I grinded down some edges and placed it in the lock. It worked even better than before and it only costed me $25, saving a very old lock!