Steel plated door

[toomush2drink]

Use a dewalt 18v rotozip and carbide milling burr, it will eat it no problem. I use a ball shaped milling burr to remove welds from steel security gates when they weld the lock in. Get the right tools and the job is a lot easier. The door sounds a bit like a sold secure door. Ive had these with rebates and steel sheets you dont know are there till you kill your spade bit on the metal.

[David_Parker]

Dremel it. Use a cutting wheel to take out the steel plate, cutting smoothly and slightly larger than the mortise fitting, then follow up with a standard mortise installation.


-Dave.

[mark davis]

I don't think you can buy a 3 inch deep hole saw, not only that it wouldn't break off either.
I also can't really see me trying to dremel a piece of steel 6 inches long and 3 inches deep.
I appreciate all your feed back, if i find a solution to cutting the steel i will post it here, but i think i'm going to end up reinstating the lock box, not really a mojor problem just going to make the job more expensive for the customer.
Thanks for all your input
Regards
Mark

[Mark A]

Morse Bi-Metal hole saws, long enough and tough enough, will even drill through hardened steel, mild steel is no problem.

Mark

[toomush2drink]

As i understand it your problem is from cutting out the mortise hole as you used the souber mortiser first ? A dewalt rotozip with a carbide milling bit is a pretty powerful bit of kit, a dremmel is nothing like it.
You also said you need some sort of router which this actually is. Take a look on the multipick website and look at the milling burr in action on the video, i have ones that are 100mm and fierce to say the least.

[NKT]

I'd second the carbide burr suggestion. I've got a range of them, for doing daft things like this. They will destroy pretty much anything, even in a toy dremel clone.

I've never put one into my Rotozip. I think that would scare people too much! I'm going to go try it!

[ponsaloti]

Mark, how did you get on with this one . I can see a hole saw wont work and the graunchy ball idea sounds about the best to me, is this the way you went with it.

[Mark A]

Guys, I,m intrrigued as to whysome of you think the Bi- Metal hole saw wont work, the OP stated that they would not be long enough and break off would be a problem.

Morse sell various diameter mandrells to suit the diameter of the hole saw being used , this has the effect of lengthening the usable depth of cut, in this case giving more than ample depth.

The break off thing is easily solved with the use of a Mallet and Chisel, I find one hit is sufficient, but would cut the timber out before hand with either a 3D or MAD bit so this would not be an issue anyway.

Once the hollow section steel has been cut through the lock can be fitted in the normal way.

I seen and fitted locks on various versions of these doors, commonly found on commercial premises, with a hollow section steel inner frame, with a timber surround, and clad with either steel both sides , or steel on external face and plywood on internal face, they are not that unusual.

For those of you that have not used a Morse hole Saw, then they are a good investment and far cheaper than a RotoZip with carbide Burrs, but probably not so much fun

Mark

[toomush2drink]

Just looked into them and i like the idea of something that can cut through wood with nails possibly in them. I didnt realise they came in small sizes like 16mm so now what you saying makes sense.
The roto zip is fun though so may have to attach one to that
I generally use the rotozip to remove welds on metal gates when they have welded the lock in.

[ponsaloti]

Mark A, looked on google and they are what i thought they were (same as starret and used by sparks). From the first discription of the door, I cant see how you break out the steel section your left with inside the saw once the saw has bottomed out, please explain.

[Mark A]

The timber in front of the steel section is taken out with a bit suitable for timber e.g. A 3D or mad bit.
This will leave a couple of mm of timber left and the 3mm thickness of the steel which is a hollow box section, so the total thickness that the hole saw will go through is 5mm so obviously the "bottoming out " will not happen.

BTW the hole saws have slots in both sides along its length and enables whatever is cut out within the saw to be easily removed.

I can picture the scenario you are envisaging, but it will not happen, as the steel section is hollow, and the timber you come across before the steel will already be removed.

Mark

[Mark A]

After rereading the the first post again I now see what you mean, what if the edge of steel sheet "fouls" the cutter?

The ones I have worked on are as I described and once you have passed the face of the steel you are into a void, if this one is not wide enough you think that the hole saw will bottom out before enough is taken out to fit a mortice lock.

The saw would bottom out if this was the case just short of the required depth and when withdrawn would leave 2 "tongues" of steel still attached, surely these could easily be broken off with grips and a bit of waggling to fatigue the steel and then the saw could be re-inserted and cut to the correct depth, with the remaining "tails" just folded inwards to allow the lock to be fitted.

Once started the hole saw does not require the drill bit in the centre of the Mandrell to bite on to anything to still cut.

Mark

[ponsaloti]

I havnt come across these doors yet, so I took the post as meaning sheet steel thru the centerof the door and not hollow section, this is why Im interested how mark has overcome the problem.
the 2 tongues bit is exactly what I was thinking.

[NKT]

I've had similar problems on uPVC/Aluminium doors, fitting electric strikes. The main issue is that you can't cut along the bottom edge of the metal box section, and I was using a combination of sharp wood chisel and extra-long HSS bit to basically knaw the base away, then connect the dots. Took forever, and was hard, hard work.

I can see a steel edge, rather than aluminium, being far harder. I've seen doors with the system you describe. (I had to fix one that had split lengthways!)

This is why I started looking at things like the long carbide cutting balls, which you can drop in to the void, then apply side pressure to mill out the back edge. I also tried disc cutters, dremel tools, 3D bits, etc. but none of those would deal too well with the tough aluminium, or they simply weren't physically big enough to drop the pocket deep enough for the strikes.

I've not bought one yet, but I've been very impressed with a demo of a new tool I saw 2 days ago, which would solve this problem entirely, as well as make lock morticing faster, both on the lock and strike side.
http://www.elliotts4tools.co.uk/product.asp?P_ID=1092 is the kit, and it does http://www.feinmultimaster.co.uk/produc ... ations.htm . Can't find a video of it, though.

It lets you cut directly into something like a drill, but as a long slit instead of a round hole. This lets you do neat things like square edges to the pocket without a chisel, cut across the grain without having to sharpen anything, and so on. You can also cut in at angles, so the only chiselling you would have to do would be at the back of the pocket. And since it has carbide grit options, it should do all this through the steel edge without sweating too much.

[NickBristol]

I saw that Fein multimaster in the back of the DG Supplyline catalogue where they've got a few pages of blurb about it.

Looks a good tool to have and seeing the price it's not as expensive as I'd assumed. Anyone got one?