I'm trying to replace an old brass door knob. I've replaced others in the house but this one won't budge, it's stuck on the square rod that goes through the door to the handle on the opposite side. I can see no screws attaching either door handle to the square rod. Brute force isn't working, am I missing a trick here? The lock is one of those that has the mechanism in a rectangular metal box screwed to the door.
Neil - door knobs are sometimes screwed onto a threaded spindle, sometimes with grub screws to stop them coming undone. One knob is left hand thread. By the way, that type lock fixed on the surface of the door is a rim lock. The type housed inside the door is a mortice lock.
Peter
Interesting, how old is this thing? Is it a door knob, or a door handle - you mention both. If it's "old looking", rather than "old", is there any sort of plate that might lever off/pull out? Bear in mind that it must have been put together somehow, and that these things invariably dismantle, so go easy on the brute force!
Jolly interesting. Thanks.
I thought you'd appreciate that! :o)
It's a door knob, not a handle. No idea how old this thing is but it's coated with at least three layers of paint, so I believe it has been here a while. Used WD40 to unclog any gunge and tried the unscrewing tip mentioned by another poster, but the bloody thing is still stuck.
The other type just slides onto a plain square spindle and has a grubscrew that fits into a hole in the spindle. Sometimes only one knob can be removed - the other is captive. But you need to release a screw before you can remove any type of doorknob. Going on about doorknobs makes me sound like that nerd in Monty Python who collected shovels and raingauges! :)
Why?
Sometimes modern versions both captive i.e. the knob comes off attached to the rimlock and/or back plate when you remove it. Older ones usually fixed at one end of spindle and screwed in various ways at the other.
The same reason that bike pedals are RH & LH thread I guess. If they were both RH thread, one of the knobs would tend to unscrew when you open the door.
Is there a brass collar between the knob and the door, screwed to the door? If so unscrew it and the knob will probably come away with it.
Yep, Unscrewed brass collar, but that's not the solution.
This is a cause célèbre, please don't cut the gordian knot just yet. If it's been painted, does scraping off some paint where you'd expect a screw to be show anything?
I wonder what it is!
Have you tried whacking it with a big lump hammer?
Yes, brute force isn't the way ahead here, unfortunately.
The only screws I can see are clearly for attaching the metal box [known as rim lock an earlier poster tells me] to the door. I starting to think the knob is welded to the square shaft that passes through the door to the handle on the opposite side.
Erm! have you had a look at the others you took off to see whats keeping the other in place?
-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite
I'm assuming this is a Victorian type door mechanism some had one screw on the door knob/s other where kept in place via a circular retainer(circlip),just after the knob?
-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite
Sometimes, on very old door knobs, the square shaft is permanently fixed into one of the two door knobs. The other one then usually unscrews from the shaft after loosening a grub screw in the neck of the knob. That avoids the need for the left-hand thread mentioned earlier in connection with screw-on door knobs.
Colin Bignell
On one side of the door is the metal box of the rim lock and on the other there is what looks like a standard issue B&Q door knob. It's identical to all the other door knobs that I've already removed without any problem. Releasing the others was just a matter of unscrewing the three screws securing the handle to the door, but that's not worked with this last remaining handle. Tempted to try brute force once more.
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