Working around the house

My customer last week phoned me after I painted her home the week before to asked me if I would be willing to install some new doorknobs in her new house. The new home had your typical subdivision in colonial 800 series doors and the lowest price hardware set that was available.
The striker pin was in around housing but no rectangular flange that screws in to the edge of the door so basically what they did and they just simply drilled a hole for the through bolt to fit into.

The new passage sets were of the old style with a rectangular flange at the end of the striker bolt.

I removed the doorknob assembly, I took out the new striker bolt assembly. I inserted the new struggle bolt assembly into the old hole, and with a sharp pencil I traced around the flange of the new striker bolt carefully not to make the whole bigger than the flange.

Then I pulled out the new striker and took my quarter inch chisel after sharpening it and scored all four corners that I had traced from the new flange.

I next filled in the gaps following the pencil mark with a 1 inch chisel. chiseling does have an art to it. When you score the off-line of the bolt you have to chisel deep enough that this will be your fault line when you are driving the chisel to the fault line. When the cleavage breaks at the fault line it will be a nice clean cut

Quick note it’s always easier to cut slower and more carefully than to cut too quickly and ruin the hole you can always chisel more but far more difficult to put it back. And since you’re reading this that means you need practice and the only way to do this without ruining it is do it slowly and carefully and never choose off too much.

Next I insert the striker into the new groove I just chiseled out and examine it for alignment. If the metal is still protruding past the edge of the door or rocks then you just take out the assembly and with your very sharp chisel you shave away the high spots. After it looked good and the assembly doesn’t rock and is seated properly screw in your screws about half way in.

Next you take apart your knob sets. Line them up with the holes on the striker knob assembly inside the hole, there are two pins on one half of the doorknob internal part which have to go through two holes of the striker assembly exposed to you through the doorknob hole. push the 2 pins through to the other side once you have this push through you take the other half of the doorknob assembly, then line up the male and female half’s of the screw-hole shafts of the knobs to fit through both half’s once lined up put the screws in and lightly tighten.

Next would you do it right up the striker bolt/squares that are with flush to chiseled mortise, make sure there is no obstructions to prevent the tightening of the striker. Now you can tighten up the actual doorknobs

Presuming all is well and your chiseling was done nicely you might not have to do any gap filling between the flange and the door edge but if you do have a small gap or a chip I suggest using some caulking to fill in the gaps.