Schlage door knob removal

[Gib Bogle]

A bedroom door in my house has a Schlage tubular/cylindrical type lock for which we have no key, and I want to remove it. I'd guess that it is younger than the house, which is 30 years old. I've found a few helpful tips online, but none seems to apply to this lock. It is usually said that there will be a hole or slot in the shaft on the inner side of the door into which a screwdriver or other tool must be inserted to depress a spring-loaded catch, enabling the inner knob to be pulled off. I don't see any such hole or slot. There is a rosette, and a cylindrical sleeve on the shaft, so that about 3 mm of the shaft can be seen between the rosette and the sleeve. What can be seen of the shaft is featureless. The only interesting feature otherwise is loop of steel wire, looking rather like the end of a paper clip, parallel to the shaft and extending about 4 mm beyond the rosette. This doesn't seem to move in any direction. I've tried pushing and pulling it while pulling on the knob - no luck. I'd be grateful for any suggestions for getting the knob off (please don't suggest a hacksaw - that's a last resort). Also I'd like to know what the wire loop is for.

[The Medway Handyman]

OK then - angle grinder :-)

Any chance of a photo?

[Matty F]

The wire loop when pushed toward the shaft allows the rosette to unclip, although you can probably lever it off with a thin screwdriver. Under that are two screws that you can possibly undo without removing the knob. On the shaft near the inner knob there should be a small slot containing a spring loaded pin, which when pushed allows the knob to be turned (anticlockwise I think) for a fraction of a turn then pulled straight off. Except that when it's been damaged by burglars I can't get the knob off, so I suppose it's out with a hacksaw.

[Gib Bogle]

The rosette only comes out a small distance before it's stopped by the sleeve.

I guess you mean the slot is at the knob end. Nothing there that I can see. Am I going blind?

Or the angle grinder.

[Matty F]

There must be a slot or a hole in the shaft between the knob and the door. Maybe the rosette is covering it. You need to poke something in that hole to allow the knob to turn on the shaft. I don't have a similar lock in this house and I can't find any pictures of it on the Net. The Schlage websites are completely inadequate in describing this very common problem - how to remove the damn knob.

[Gib Bogle]

I got it off, using a finely judged blend of BF and BI (no hacksaw or AG required). I now see the little slotted catch that was previously hidden under the sleeve, at the knob end. It seems that the sleeve needed to pushed away from the knob to expose it, but, possibly because of previous abuse of the rosette, the sleeve resisted such a displacement.