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Refurbishing a Victorian Rim Lock

Welcome to our brief video tutorial about refurbishing a simple steel cased rim lock. This particular latch is probably late Victorian and these thumb latch examples are normally seen on bathrooms and bedrooms. This tutorial is also relevant to modern rim locks and latches
We also refurbish and restore rim locks & latches at our workshop in E Bristol. We've included a couple of images below of some of our recent work.
If you have any restoration inquiries, drop us an email.
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A selection of late Victorian steel cased rim locks with many layers of old paint, some did work, some didn't, some had keeps.  
Each lock has been taken apart, all the old paint stripped, all the mechanisms refurbished (a couple of repairs), sourced some replacement keeps & refinished each lock  
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Early Victorian wrought iron rim lock, no key or keep & the handle didn't operate the bolt, so fairly useless.
Repaired the handle bolt (as well as another couple of repairs) refurbished the mechanism, stripped all the paint and replaced the keep. The customer needed a pair of handles, so we adapted an original pair to fit.
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An early Victorian (possibly late Georgian) large left handed wrought iron rim lock. Lots of Black paint, no key or keep. 
The mechanism just needed a good clean and a light refurbish. The layers of paint were removed, the brass lightly polished. We've made a new key and new keep with a brass edge to match the mounts on the lock. Finally the iron sympathetically refinished to retain the age. 
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A late Georgian left handed front door rim lock with a thumb latch and and a sliding night latch.
Needed a fair bit of refurbishment and a few repairs. New brass plate and knob for the sliding night latch. New matching keep, new key and a we adapted an antique pair of handles to fit.
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  • Hello I have just stripped a rim lock which was coated in layers of paint. I have rub the surface of the lock with fine steel wool but the surface looks patchy. Can you recommend how to get a good finish?

    JAMES GORMAN

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