This installation involved a door common to a lot of the older apartment buildings around town, a steel jamb with a wood door wrapped with sheet metal, technically called a "Kalamein door". The lock selected for this is an Arrow E61 single cylinder deadbolt. This is a good choice for this door in particular, as I will be using a drive bolt instead of the standard bolt with a faceplate. Of all the midrange priced deadbolts, Arrow seems to make the best quality drive bolt. First I attach the drilling jig. Is this always needed? No. A lot of locksmiths shun this, but I like a perfect installation, wherever possible, and the jig really does insure that I will wind up with everything in the right spot without having to fudge anything. If I was the customer, I would certainly want a fudge free installation.

    The 2-1/8" hole is bored-halfway from each side. Next I start the hole for the edge bore with a 1" hole saw, and as soon as I break through the sheet metal, I stop and remove the jig. The wood in this door seems particularly hard and tough to saw, with a lot of clogging on the hole saw teeth, and a bit of smoke rising from the cut due to the heat. This being the case, I change the 1" hole saw for a 1" spade bit, and finish the cut.

With the door bored out, the strike locater can be inserted into the 1" bore, the door closed to its normal shut position, and the locater is pushed into the jamb to leave a mark. The strike locater is a very handy little tool to have, it is basically nothing more than a piece of 1" dowel with a sharp steel point portruding at dead center. I get a lot of use out of it. You can accomplish basically the same thing using a 1" hole saw, without the mandrel, to locate a strikes position.

Having marked for the strike, I can now insert the drive-in bolt into the 1" bore. CAUTION: Make sure the bolt is retracted when inserting, or you can damage it. I am using the drive-in bolt instead of the normal bolt due to the metal skin of the door. It is actually possible to cut the metal skin and into the wood using a hammer and chisel if you absolutely had to use a regular bolt, but installations like this is why they make the drive bolt. The drive-in bolt is a snug fit, as it should be. Do not let the name "drive-in" bolt fool you. If you attempt to actually drive it, as in hitting it with a hammer, you will damage it, and it will not work properly. If it will not go in by pushing with my fingers, the hardest I am willing to force it is by pushing it with the rubber handle of a hammer. If it is still too hard to push, the hole needs to be reamed out just a touch more.

Now the outside half of the lock is put into position with the cylinder tailpiece passing through the bolt, and the inside thumbturn is mounted, the tailpiece extending into the thumbpiece. The two heavy mounting screws can be tightened down, and everything checked for smooth operation.

Attention is now turned to the jamb. This is a pretty heavy steel jamb, and it is located on a basement level of a brick building. This lets me know it is probably packed with mortar, or even concrete. Just by tapping the jamb lightly with a screwdriver handle, I pretty much confirm this fear. I carefully drill the 1/4" hole for the hole saws pilot, then proceed to saw the 1" hole. Fortunately, the jamb is not tightly packed, and the mortar is soft and crumbly, so it is not the potential hammer and brick chisel workout it could have been. LockInfoGuy hates when that happens. A little smoothing out with a round file, and this one is done.