Stealth door lock build

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Vador
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Stealth door lock build

Post by Vador »

Hey.
I needed a way to lock my grow room door without making it obvious there is a lock.
Electronic locks are out of the question due to the risk of failure, all electronics fail at some point and I need a non destructive entry into the room if it does fail. We’ve had a discussion on this in another thread found here

This is the stealth lock,
Image

With the pin in place you can open the door but once removed the handle turns but the mechanism doesn't engage.

It was meant to have magnetic pins inside it and you put a powerful magnet on top of the handle to engage the pins but unfortunately I dropped both pins I had on the garage floor and lost them so I’m using a bit of wire formed into a spring clip now.
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To make this yourself is very easy and you only need a few things
1. 10mm rod 200mm long, it doesn’t need to be that long but it’s good to have extra in case you make a mistake. If your using magnetic pins you’ll want a brass rod or something non magnetic. Brass is a good choice anyway because it’s non magnetic, strong and easy to work with.
2. A spring that fits inside the handle.
3. Lathe, you could use a drill and a file or bit of sandpaper though.
4. Files.

That’s it, first you’ll need to take the door handle off the outside of the door and remove the metal square bar, we will use this for measurements. Mark the square spindle with a sharpie so you know how deep the spindle goes into the handle and transfer that mark to the brass rod and also add an additional 5mm to the length.
just stick the brass rod in the lathe and machine the marked end down so it fits in the handle, you might find the spindle end you machine goes in further than the original square rod does and jams up, that’s ok that’s what the springs for.

When you have a nice fit with your brass rod in the handle you’ll need to cut it down to length, it’s always good to make it a little bit longer than what you need. Just use the old square sided spindle to measure it out and chop it off giving yourself a couple mm extra on the end.
This is what it looks like, the spring is inside the handle pushing the brass rod out a bit.
Image

Now just sling it flat in a vice so it’s nice and level and protruding up just a few mm.
go ahead and flatten that side off with a file. When your happy with that just rotate it 45 degrees and use the flat side you just made in the vice jaws to line it up.
Work your way round all 4 sides before checking in the handle for fit.
Image

You can eyeball it in real easy and just file off any bits that need attention, when your done you should have nice square corners and a perfect fit. The tighter the better, you don’t want too much slop or it might make the pin harder to line up later.

To assemble just slot the new brass bar into the door, drop the spring into the handle on the round end of the bar, this will make sure the pin is lined up every time.
Screw the handle back onto the door and give it a try, you should not be able to open the door but the handle should move freely, if you can open the door then the spindle is too tight in the handle, either back into the lathe or into a drill and just take the face off and try again.
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When you have everything working correctly and the door doesn’t open when you pull the handle, use a small drill bit and drill through the underside of the handle, through the brass bar and a bit into the other side of the handle being careful not to come out of the top. I used a 2.5mm cobalt drill bit for this operation.
Now you’ve got two options.
1. Use a paper clip or small bit of wire as your pin, it can be put in the hole and then wrapped up over the handle into a sort of spring that just rest on top of the handle to stop it falling out, but is easy to remove in seconds.
2. Use steel magnetic pin and close up the bottom side of the hole you drilled in the brass rod, you could use a bit of solder or maybe some glue/jbweld to fill the bottom of the hole just a little, then drop the steel pin in the hole and file it down flat. When a powerful magnet is placed on top of the handle it should pull the pin up and into the handle.

I haven’t tried the second one yet cos like I said I lost both my pins on the garage floor but it should work, I’ll be giving that a go when I get some new pins.
For now though the wire clip is working perfectly so I’ll make do with that.
Thanks for looking in.
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duke (Sun May 08, 2022 7:48 pm) • Nom (Thu Jun 09, 2022 4:36 am) • sybarite (Fri Jun 17, 2022 11:43 am)
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MrNice
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Re: Stealth door lock build

Post by MrNice »

Excellent Vad ..........
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Vador (Sun May 08, 2022 7:18 pm)
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Re: Stealth door lock build

Post by Vador »

MrNice wrote:
Sun May 08, 2022 7:12 pm
Excellent Vad ..........
So far so good mate, easy to make as well. Takes about 30 minutes in the workshop, would be quicker with a mill but I don’t have one, yet.

It just stops people accidentally walking into the room when you’ve got guests round or perhaps workers, can blame it on a dodgy handle and not have to explain a grow op lol
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MrNice (Sun May 08, 2022 7:34 pm)

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Re: Stealth door lock build

Post by Vador »

Here's a little demonstration of it in action, sorry about the sweaty mitts just been lugging barrels of nutrients.
To the Video app.php/vblog/vador/88/926

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Re: Stealth door lock build

Post by Vador »

It’s been just over a month since this was fitted so thought it time for a little update.

The handle is still working perfect, so perfect in fact I keep forgetting about it and try to open the door without the pin in but nothing happens.
We’ve had house guests, not sure if anyone has tried the handle but it’s comforting to know they aren’t getting in.

I tried fitting the magnet pin again but it didn’t work as well as I’d hoped, the magnet would pull the pin into place and let you operate the handle, but when the magnets removed the pin stays bound up in the hole and doesn’t want to come back out. Gave up with that and went back to the old method.

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