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How to make the locks on these old (vintage?) spindle-style doorknobs (for bedroom doors) less stiff?

I also have a few of these wherein the lock (though I can move it all the way to the right) doesn't actually lock the door. Is there something I can do (besides replacing the entire doorknob) to get the lock to work again?

These doorknobs are from a house built around 1935.

old privacy door knob

old privacy door knob _ angle 2

old privacy door knob _ other side

Update - 09-01-24...

I haven't had a chance to get some graphite dry lubricant yet, but I think I figured out why at least one of the locks was no longer working. When I disassembled a different (but same type) of doorknob that wasn't locking at all, I noticed that the section of the spindle where the locking mechanism constrains the movement of the spindle had gotten very worn down (over the 50+ years of its life). So, as a quick fix, I just flipped the spindle, so the interior body / plate component (which contains the locking mechanism) would now have a (relatively) unworn section of spindle to bite into. This seems to have worked!

Here are some pics which should hopefully better illustrate what I'm talking about...

doorknob-04

doorknob-05

doorknob-06-v2

Now, as per JACK, I'm just going to pick up some graphite dry lubricant and hopefully that will resolve the stiffness issues on the various other doorknobs in the house.

Rockwell Moon
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1 Answers1

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If you really want them to work like new, remove them from the door and wire brush/clean all the parts to remove any rust and then get some normal duty oil or graphite dry lubricant and oil the parts and re-assemble into the door. If you're not up to doing all this work, spray some lubricating oil into all the moving parts without disassembling and work the parts back and forth. If the locks don't latch enough to lock the doors, you'll probably have to adjust the strike plate, shim it out a bit.

JACK
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