Very Rusty Ornate 1880s Mortise Lock Restoration | Random Restoration

Welcome! Today's restoration will be a very rusty ornate cast iron double key mortise lock which was manufactured by Reading Hardware Co. in the 1880s. This old lock, like other old hardware I've restored by Reading recently, has a Windsor design cast iron faceplate. The Reading Windsor was manufactured starting in the mid 1880s, and based on the logo this antique lock has, this is an 1880s variant.

I started off this rather rusty hardware restoration by removing the two case cover screws. These are usually pretty loose fitting screws, so luckily they almost always unscrew without any fight, even when the case is in bad shape. With the case cover off, I removed all of the rust covered interior components. Following this it was on to paint stripping. There was very little paint and japanning left on the parts, so it probably wasn't really necessary haha.

Next up was rust removal - Like in all my restorations so far, I threw the rusted parts in some Evapo Rust for a day or four. I can't remember. With the rust removed I went ahead and wire wheeled all of the parts to clean off any remaining grease and stubborn grime. Before I could restore anything on this mortise lock I had to make new springs and keys. There were three broken flat springs that were replaced, and I quickly cut a couple keys - One for each keyhole.

Now I moved on to restoring groups of components. I started with the ornate faceplate which needed sanding, lacquering and had the recessed areas and back/edges painted black. When it came to the mortise lock case and case cover there wasn't much to do other than painting them black. Next I moved on to restoring the bolts. They were pretty much just got a thin layer of clear lacquer to protect them from tarnishing. The springs were then blued - Bluing steel will offer some rust protection. The remaining small parts were simply soaked in oil to protect against rust.

Now it was time to reassemble the mortise lock. The faceplate was screwed onto the case, the small components were reinstalled, the case cover was screwed into place and the mortise lock was finally done and looking almost like new! This was one rusty restoration - I actually only purchased this lock because I was going to swap a few interior parts with another identical bronze mortise lock which was missing a few parts, but decided I'd rather make new parts for that lock and fix it in a future video and make this one a proper trash to treasure restoration of sorts haha.

Time Stamps:

0:00 Welcome!
0:33 Disassembly
2:57 Paint Stripping
3:37 Cleaning/Rust Remover
4:37 Wire Wheeling
5:23 Tapping New Threads
6:07 Making New Springs
7:47 Making Keys
9:17 Restoring the Faceplate
10:52 Restoring the Bolts
12:23 Restoring the Case
13:13 Bluing Small Parts
14:12 Reassembly
16:55 A Quick Test
17:22 Before and After

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