Some days, the door will make you feel like a beginner again. Trust me on that – I’ve been a full time professional locksmith for over 8 years now, and it still happens on, thankfully rarer and rarer, occasion.

Yesterday, I went out to complete a job. I was fitting a 3R35 Chubb to a rebated fire door, which is not really outside my comfort zone at all. Yet things went a bit wrong, and time ran away with me, until it was 7pm, a full 2 hours after the finish time I had projected for the job.

Looking back, I have already learned a few lessons. Just because normally one battery charge will do a full rebate set, don’t assume it will this time. Make sure that your back-up drill is actually on the van, and not lost somewhere, so the back-up batteries can be used. Remember that old doors can have very neat things done to them that are long since forgotten by all, and then covered in more than one layer of paint. And finally, when dealing with an old hardwood door, don’t forget it can take half an hour to remove all the old hardware, and take another half an hour to put it all back perfectly afterwards!

The job was finished, and looks perfect (at least, my bit does – I’m going to go back when doing the next job and fill and make nice some damage caused by another – look just under the bottom edge of the handle) with a lovely brass handle set. True, it doesn’t match perfectly, but there are no handles that would, but it still looks good.

In fact, judge for yourself: