Customer Reviews

DEWALT D180004 Bi-Metal Door Lock Installation Kit

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This product did a decent job of assisting with the installation of a small number of locks on solid wood doors in my home. The guide is made of plastic and does not really provide a true wiggle-free alignment. Particularly on a 1 3/8 thick door there is probably enough free play to get into trouble if you are not careful aligning the drill.

On the plus side, the hole saws provided are of quite good quality.

Note that this guide will only work properly on doors that are 1 3/8 or 1 3/4" thick. Use in odd size doors will result in a mis-centered latch/side bore. The guide does adjust to appropriately locate the cross bore for backsets of either 2 3/8 or 2 3/4 inches. Conclusion: probably of sufficient durability for a homeowner doing a small number of installations; not going to cut it for a contractor.

In general, I agree with the previous reviewer.

Our home has older (50+ year old) doors, and I have used this to replace worn-out doorknobs (entire mechanism).

As there was an existing face-bore (in the no longer standard, smaller size of 1 1/2"), some jig was needed to correctly drill the current 2 1/8" standard face bore ... you can't stabilize a hole saw without one if the mandrel is in the air.

That said, I also agree about not getting a perfectly centered latch hole in our doors that are a little under 1 3/4" thick. But, it's certainly more than good enough. The error of perhaps 1/16th inch can be corrected in positioning the strike in the door jamb.

The limitation is in the mandrel: the larger threaded adapter for the 2 1/8" saw is ROUND! It is not hex, so you cannot remove it with a wrench (like you can with a normal mandrel), and ended up using another (better grade) mandrel for the 1" latch bore hole saw. I eventually got the adapter off ... when it was all but welded to the 2 1/8" hole saw, from which I doubt I will ever get it separated.

Other than that, I could not have been able to replace the older hardware (as described above), and so give this a slightly better rating. (Purchase was at a local hardware store, at a slightly better price).

The competing Irwin product looks interesting as the router template has the potential to save a lot of time in chiseling the inset for the latch in the door edge.

I own another unit that was more costly than this door installation kit; however, it is designed for wooden doors and not bi-metal.

I own plenty of DeWalt tools that I am very happy with, and it was a natural for this selection.

This less-expensive tool allows me to use either unit as required.

I'm a homeowner who has installed a LOT of door locks. When faced with a project to install 7, I thought this tool would at least take away a little of the pain. It didn't. In retrospect, all it did was make the easiest part of door lock installation no easier than it already was. I used it for the first 2 locks, then put it in the yard sale box.

The fit of the hole saws is sloppy, and the tool hides the hole saw so you can't see where you are or where you're headed. It's just as easy and even more accurate to mark the two drilling points and drill the holes without any "guide" to hold your drill straight for you.

The hole saw provided for edge boring is 1". That's fine if your locks call for a 1" hole, but mine were all very popular Schlages that called for a 7/8" hole.

The edge guide assumes your doors are either 2 3/4" or 1 3/8", as almost every door ever built is. Guess what? One of the doors I used this on is a gorgeous custom made panel door that turns out to be a scant 1 1/4"! So of course the edge bored hole isn't in the middle of the door. Who would've thought. Now, if I hadn't been using this gizmo I would have found the center of the door edge, marked and drilled it, and had it properly centered.

If you have a lot of door locks to install, consider buying router templates for routing recesses for the strike plates. Also, buy your locks first to see what diameter hole saws you'll need.

I recently purchased a 1930's home, and the first thing we wanted to do was change the locks. When I removed the old lock from the solid wood door, it was smaller in diameter than the standard locks of today. But since the hole was already existing, it would have been hard if not impossible to center the bit perfectly to enlarge the existing bore.

By using this jig, I was able to line it up perfectly. First, I aligned the small hole on the side of the door (which was the right size) and put the smaller bit in there to align it, clamped it down, and boom! The larger hole was perfectly aligned. All I had to do was drill.

All the parts are solid and well made, and the bit cut through the door like butter. Clearly this tool has limited use - it only does one thing. But the one thing it does, it does very, very well.

The plastic jig to line up the placement for the hole saw cuts works great. It clamps easily and firmly in place, and is easy to adjust for standard latches and door thicknesses. Some complain that the jig doesn't hold the hole saw in alignment vertically and horizontally, but no jig of this type can do that. If you can't hold a drill straight enough for the duration of a cut through the thickness of a door, you probably should not be doing this kind of work to begin with.
The hole saw and mandrel are another story. Although the package contents list an "adapter", I could not find any mention in the instructions of the need to remove the mandrel adapter for the 2 1/8" hole saw in order to use the mandrel on the 1" saw. Worse yet, the adapter is round and looks like part of the mandrel rather than a separate piece. Took me a while to figure this out. Because it is round, you have to use vice grips to twist off the adapter while you are holding the end of the mandrel. When you use the 2 1/8" saw, the torque tends to lock on the saw to the adapter and the adapter to the mandrel. I spent more time trying to separate these pieces than I spent making the holes in my door. Also, the hole saws have narrow slots which do not allow you to put a screwdriver through them to twist them off until you remove the guide bit and the wooden plug from the last door hole. I ended up putting the end of the mandrel in a vice and using a pipe wrench on the saw to twist it off.
Dewalt really dropped the ball by not making the adapter hexagonal so you could hold it with a wrench. This would also make it obvious that it was a separate piece and not part of the mandrel itself. As other reviewers have noted, do yourself a favor and buy a separate mandrel for the 1" saw. Yuo will end up paying more than you should need to for this type of tool, but at least the results will be useable.

Mandrel adapter is impossible to remove after using the 2 1/8 inch hole saw. If you intend to use this product more than once, you'll have to buy a separate 1-inch saw/mandrel.

I used this quite successfully for one door. I started with the 1" hole saw, and then cut the 2.125" hole with the larger saw. It was tough to unscrew the 1" from the pilot adapter, but overall everything went well. The next day I decided to do a couple more doors and couldn't get the 1" hole saw to screw onto the adapter. The threads had totally died and were unusable. I had to use another 1" hole saw that I had, luckily.

Other than the problems switching between hole saws, this product is pretty nice for standard doors.

I used this kit on about 10 doors so far and I have to agree with others here with regards to the mandrel adapter; it is poorly designed and gets stuck often. It actually gets/got stuck so often that rather than mess around with it I leave it on the 2 1/8 inch hole saw and just use a 1" spade bit versus switching out the mandrel to the 1" adapter. Grinding down on some of the cheap plastic hole guide is unavoidable as well, at least it was for me. Lastly if you clamp it on the door too tight you may leave dimples in the door, so be gentle.

Bottom line, it is a cheap tool and I would not use it professionally. For the DIY'er and a couple of doors, it is "ok" for the price.

It works perfectly. But it will probably not last long if you have a bunch of doors to do. That being said, I would definitely buy it again.