Monday, October 06, 2008

Fixing a window latch

Over the past year and a half I've been making small steps towards replacing a missing window latch. It's a long time to take, but now that it's fixed I am a very, very happy camper.

It's a latch on an aluminium frame, and what was there when I started was:

- two holes in the outer frame where a spacer thing used to be.
- the bottom bit of the handle, rivetted in place. The handle itself was nowhere to be seen, just the housing.

How I fixed it:

- bought the wrong kind of latch. Swapped it for another wrong kind.
- Let 6 months pass
- Let a year pass
- Looked up how to remove rivets on the internet. Found out that you get a drill, and drill the head off the rivet. The remainder can then be pushed back through the hole to fall out the non-head side
- Drilled the head off one rivet. Success! Drilled the head off the other rivet
- Used a flat-headscrewdriver to prise the old latch-housing off the frame. This required more force than I expected
- Used a voucher to get the right kind of latch
- Realised that the aliminium frame is a closed frame with two parts screwed together, so you can't see the backs of the rivets
- Discovered that the rivets were wedged in like crazy anyway and not about to be pushed anywhere
- Unscrewed the bottom of the frame only to find that it's not just screwed together. There's something else holding the two parts together (something I didn't want to break and then be unable to put back together)
- grabbed pliers and twisted one rivet vigorously, trying not to break the window or bend the frame. It loosened up
- snipped most of the shaft of the rivet off with brute force and some cutters, then poked it back through the hole. This means there's a little rattly bit of metal inside the window frame, but window frames don't move around too much so it's no big deal.
- Repeated for the second rivet
- Discovered that the screws that came with the latch were the wrong size for the rivet holes, and that none of the screws I had lying around the house would do the job
- Bought an assorted pack of screws from the $1, $2, $3 shop - and was pleasantly surprised to find some that fit really well!
- Screwed on the new latch
- Put a new spacer on the outside frame (with a self-adhesive backing strip, so really easy)

Voila!

3 comments:

Matt said...

It ain't pretty, but it keeps the wind out :-)

I will update if it falls off in the next 24 hours...

Jenni said...

epic!

Anonymous said...

Auditioning for tool time next??? :)