Baldwin 5634 Horizontal Entry Rim Lock with Fixed Bit Key

The 5634 horizontal rim lock is built for a 2-1/4 inch door. That is a heavy colonial-style door, not the 1-3/4 inch commercial standard or the 1-3/8 inch older interior door, so measure the leaf before ordering. Because a rim lock case surface mounts on the interior face rather than sitting inside a mortise pocket, the thickness spec is about how the exterior knob spindle and bit key line up through the door, and a thinner or thicker leaf throws that alignment off.

Backset on the 5634 is 5-1/4 inches, measured from the door edge to the knob center. That is far deeper than the 2-3/8 and 2-3/4 inch backsets used on bored locksets, which is normal for a horizontal rim lock: the case sits on the face of the door and carries the knob well in from the edge. Check that nothing (a stile bead, a panel molding, a glass stop) sits where the case body needs to land.

The lock case measures 4 x 6-3/4 x 7/8 inches and the strike keeper measures 4 x 7/8 x 1-5/8 inches. The case mounts on the interior face, so you need a flat run of stile and rail big enough to take those case dimensions without crowding a raised panel, and the jamb needs room for the keeper. On a narrow-stile door the case will overlap the panel field.

Handing matters. The 5634 is ordered as left hand or right hand and the case is not reversible in the field. Stand outside the door, on the side you key from: if the hinges are on your left, it is a left hand door. A rim lock case is asymmetric because the latch and the knob hub have to face the jamb, so the wrong hand cannot be turned around to work.

Knobs are included. Every 5634 rim lock ships with the 5030 knob for both the interior and the exterior, plus the strike keeper for the jamb. If you want a different Baldwin Estate knob to match the rest of the openings in the house, any Estate knob will mount on the rim lock, so you can swap the 5030 out at order time.

It is a single cylinder entry lock: a keyed cylinder on the exterior and a fixed bit key on the interior, which is what keeps the historic look on the inside face. That bit key on the inside means the interior is not a thumbturn, so anyone leaving needs the bit key in place. Because the exterior takes a standard Baldwin cylinder, it can be brought onto a house keyway; the interior bit key is a separate mechanism and does not key alike with it.

No. The 5634 is a residential entry lock, and two things rule it out for commercial work: it is specified for a 2-1/4 inch door, which is not a commercial leaf, and the interior operates on a fixed bit key rather than free egress hardware. For a leased or public building opening you want a Grade 1 or Grade 2 mortise or cylindrical lockset with a lever and single-motion egress instead.

Rim lock if the door has never been mortised, or if the stile is too thin or too fragile to take a lock pocket. The 5634 case screws to the interior face and only needs bores for the spindle and the bit key, so you are not cutting a cavity into a 200 year old stile. Go mortise instead when the door already has a mortise pocket you would otherwise have to patch, or when you want the case hidden and a thumbturn on the inside rather than a bit key.

Three: 031 Non-Lacquered Brass, 033 Vintage Brass, and 190 Satin Black, and each one is available in both left and right hand. Non-lacquered brass has no clear coat, so it will darken and patina with handling, which is usually the point on a colonial door. Vintage brass is a pre-aged, stable finish, and satin black reads closest to old painted or wrought hardware.

No mortised strike plate. It uses a rim lock strike keeper, a surface box that screws to the face of the jamb and measures 4 x 7/8 x 1-5/8 inches. The latch catches inside that box rather than dropping into a routed pocket, so the jamb only needs screw holes and a flat bearing surface. That is another reason this style suits an original jamb you do not want to cut.

It is part of the Baldwin Estate Series, so it shares that line's finishes and knob styles. Any Estate knob mounts on the rim lock, which lets you carry one knob design across mortise sets, bored sets, and the rim locks on the doors that cannot be mortised. Order the rim locks in the same finish code as the rest, 031, 033, or 190, and the openings read as one set even though the lock bodies differ.