Installing a mortise lock

Has anyone had experience mortising a door for a mortise lock? Not sure if certain doors are better than others for this type of installation, but I bought one of these craftsman entry doors and a schlage mortise lock. The instructions call for a 1" wide, 6" long, 4" deep mortise. Do you drill a series of holes to accomplish this? Thank you..

va_carpenter said:

The instructions call for a 1" wide, 6" long, 4" deep mortise. Do you drill a series of holes to accomplish this?

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Yes, and it will be easier to drill if the door is only solid in the area of the lock and then hollow.

You may want to buy/make a drilling fixture because you don't have a whole lot of room for error in the drilling axis being parallel to the plane of the door.
Also look into a rotary drum rasp for cleaning up the hole.

A door holder, which looks like an upside down V with a slot to hold the door vertically with the long edge against the floor, comes in handy. You can make it with 1x2s and line the slot with cardboard so you don't mar the door surface.

I use a Mortise Jig for installing mortise locksets, since I install alot of commercial mortise locksets...but you can accomplish this without one.

#1. place the mortise template on the edge of the door and trace the area on the door to be mortised. using a sharp 3/4" or 1" chisel (whatever the width of the mortise is) proceede to chisel out about 1/8" deep the entire sqaure of the area of material to be mortised. #2. Using spade bits (otherwise known as paddle bits) start "progression" drilling the material from the area. do this by drilling down 1/2 inch , them moving the bit down 1/2 inch to the next spot with higher material, until you've reached the level you need to insert the box. I usually have a piece of tape on the bit the depth of the box.

use the chisel to remove the excess material from the edges of where the bits did not get. Once you get to where you can place the box into the cavity, insert the box all the way down and trace the the face plate. then chisel out the depth of the face plate where you just traced into the edge of the door.

take your time and think everything though. otherwise most reputable door companies will do this for you for a fee.