Welcome! Today's restoration is this very rusty antique cast iron mortise lock which was manufactured in the 1880s by Sargent & Co. The ornate door knobs, faceplate and backplates were called the "Arcadia" design - The Sargent Arcadia was their most popular ornate design in the 1880s-1890s. Not only was this shabby old lock totally seized, both ornate door knobs were stuck to the terribly rusty spindle. This is by far the most rusty restoration I've taken on yet - This lock was going to take a bit of effort to restore!
To start this hardware restoration off I needed to cut the door knobs off the spindle. Luckily there was enough room to hacksaw the spindle off without damaging the backplates or mortise lock. With all the hardware separated it was time for paint stripping. One coat of gel paint stripper took off most of the paint. Next up I used a strong degreaser to thoroughly clean off all the main pieces. Then it was time for rust removal - The hardware was all soaked in rust remover for about a week.
After this I drilled out the mortise lock case screw, disassembled the interior components and drilled the solid rivets holding the faceplate onto the lock case. Like in previous restorations all the components were now thoroughly wire wheeled, and the mortise lock was reassembled. Now I went ahead and made two new springs. One to tension the door knobs and latch bolt, and the other to tension the tumbler. With the mortise lock repair work mostly done I now needed to cut a key. Luckily this wasn't a double key mortise lock, so the key cutting process went very quickly this time haha. Next finished off the small parts by cold bluing them to prevent rust in the future.
Then I painted the mortise lock case with primer, and applied a bit of body filler to the outside of the lock case and case cover to make it more presentable looking. I continued by painting on another layer of primer, followed by a black base coat. Then I moved onto restoring the faceplate. There was nothing to repair with it, but it needed a decent amount of sanding. I sanded it through 800 grit, then polished it up to a mirror finish. With the polishing done it was time for lacquering. I used a lacquer which is made for bronze/copper/brass and it turned out looking pretty good considering this was the first time I used it haha. Restoring the door knobs and backplates followed the same process as the faceplate. This project was a great deal of fun for me - Although I will only be using this as a display piece due to the extensive pitting on the lock and small parts, seeing this lock go from trash to treasure was very satisfying, and it's unlikely that this totally lock would have had a very bright future if it hadn't been restored.
Time Stamps:
0:00 Welcome!
0:35 Disassembly
1:50 Paint Stripping
3:11 Lock Disassembly
6:55 Cleaning up lock
8:37 Reattaching the Faceplate
9:20 Making New Springs
10:13 Making a Key
11:15 Bluing Small Parts
12:06 Restoring the Lock Case
13:51 Restoring the Faceplate
14:37 Reassembling the Lock
16:06 Restoring the Door Knobs
18:13 Restoring the Backplates
19:52 Before and After
21:15 A Quick Test
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