Finally got a handle on those old-school magnetic contacts in a historic building

I was retrofitting a system in a 1920s bank downtown, and the original door frames were throwing the alignment off by a full quarter inch. I ended up fabricating a small angled shim from a piece of scrap plastic to get the gap perfect. What's your go-to fix for tricky old hardware like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

evan_dixon673mo agoMost Upvoted

Wait, you got it down to a quarter inch? That's wild. The old brass frames in buildings like that are never straight. I've seen gaps you could fit a pencil in. A plastic shim is smart though, sometimes you just have to get creative with what's in the van.

the_joel26d ago

Man, that's basically every old house project in a nutshell right there.

clark.iris3mo ago

But Evan, isn't a quarter inch gap still a failure to meet the original spec?