Remove the old jamb and casing with a pry bar.ģ. Remove current door from its hinges by popping up the pins with a hammer and nailset.Ģ. Thanks for sharing your ideas.In this video, Ask This Old House general contractor Tom Silva is in Salem, MA, to help install a bookshelf that doubles as a door.ġ. Great idea and and it gives me additional ideas on how to modify this for a completely hidden and secure closet. You could really beef up the locking mechanism this way if you wanted to do so. Using a spring might also allow you to use a non magnetized metal cylinder for the locking mechanism rather than another magnet. In fact, the spring might make the top down locking magnet easier to reset without the need to flip the key magnet to push the locking magnet back down and into place again. The gravity works from the top down, but a spring would allow it to work from bottom up as well. The spring would need to be light enough to pull the locking magnet out, yet strong enough to push the locking magnet back in place when the key magnet is removed. One small suggestion that would allow you to use this locking technique from both above as done here, or also from below, would be to add a small spring. Since this one is hidden, the magnet and lock strength is not as important as stealth really. Those locks can be quiet pricey and are not always stealthy either. I really like this idea and have been wanting to build a full hidden closet with a magnetic related lock, and this is a cheap and easy way to do that without the expense of a more elaborate magnetic lock. Comments and suggestions for improvements welcome! The magnets are small but very strong so don't let them jump together because they chip easily and can pinch skin and fingers as well. I'm sure these magnet type locks can be used in lots of different ways on different projects. The spare old shelf was kept at the top of the cupboard as it needed an extra shelf. (I will probably have to add some cooling fans and power to the cupboard for that later). My friend added two labels above the sockets to make them look like UPS power supplies for the computer server equipment that he plans to install on the bottom shelf. More accurate locating of all the parts and blocks would probably have made this unnecessary. I did add one rubber oring to the inside centre of the door held on with duct tape just to take up a small amount of play that existed when I first assembled it. But after all adjustments the door operated fine as you can see in the video. The holes for the magnets needed to be enlarged slightly as they were 8mm holes and the magnets were also 8mm magnets that I got on Amazon. The door needed a little bit of sanding and jiggling to get it to fit properly. ![]() Next I drilled holes in the blocks on the door and then used homemade dowel joint pins to mark perfectly aligned points on the blocks attached to the shelf so that I could also drill them. ![]() ![]() In this position I marked up the locations for the blocks and screwed them to the door. To achieve this I removed the shelf from the cupboard, put it down flat upside down and then offered the door up to it in the position that they would be in when the door was locked closed. These blocks need to line up with the blocks on the shelf above the door and the hole drilled in each block for the cylindrical magnets also need to line up perfectly. These had to be perfectly aligned with the holes that I drilled in the bottom of the cupboard.įinally I added two blocks for the magnetic door lock. Two pieces of dowel were cut and initially mounted on the back of the door using duct tape but then screwed and glued later. A piece of 2x1 across the back of the door and some long wood screws into the holes in the sockets secured them in place. I have no jigsaw or fretsaw so I drilled holes around the outline of the back of the sockets and then used the saw on my penknife to finish the job. ![]() It was too tall so I cut it down to fit under the lower shelf and cut out holes where I mounted two old double gang sockets. I made the door from one of the old shelves which were already the perfect width.
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