Out of Plumb

At last house stuff! I headed out the back door the other day to feed the cats before going to work, ungrateful little wretches that they are. Tried to open the back door to come in and the little thumb lever snapped right off in side the lock! Now I am in my bare feet, soon to be required at my place of business, my wife isn’t home and I can’t get back in. I know good and well the rest of the doors are locked and I don’t have the house keys in my pocket. Managed to jam another key in the hole, shove the broken part back inside and lever the door open. Took it apart later and fished out the broken chunk it is just some pot metal hunk of crap. I thought the lock set might have been purchased locally meaning a replacement set or at best parts might be available. No luck. They wanted $100 for a crappy version that didn’t match the rest of the house! That was not really what I had in mind. After some thought and study I began to get the idea I could make one. I didn’t have any brass the right size so that meant brazing two smaller rods together.


I have never done brazing before. The difference between brass that is hot enough to weld and a pool of brass on the floor is a span of time that could only be measured by the Germans. I hammered and tapped and brazed and tapped and bent only to get right close and phisttt gone. I don’t mind that, hell I screw things up all the time, especially new things, but and this is a big but, I only had one piece of brazing rod. When it was gone I was humped. The second attempt I was much faster got everything tapped and brazed just so and didn’t melt it much. I was holding the stub of brazing rod with pliers but I got it. Now I make no aspersions to beauty, I realize it sticks out at an odd angle and is very lumpy but I don’t care. It is a work of art in my eyes. With the false starts and the thinking time it took me 3 hours, that is $33 an hour by my calculations. The door lock works better now than it ever did. Honest to god every time I use the back door I get this big shit-eating grin on my face. I saw it only as a stopgap to get us by but now I wouldn’t change it for the world.