HO Scale Doorknobs

I really like DPM structure kits, but their doors don’t have any doorknobs.

What do I use?

Use a straight pin! Drill a hole with a very small drill bit, or, alternately, heat up a straight pin with a lighter (hold it with a pair of pliers!) and when it’s red hot poke it where you want the doorknob hole to go. Then just draw the pin through until the head of the pin is flush with the door, cut off the rest of the pin on the inside of the door, and secure it with a dab of Goo.

Suydam kits included straight pins for doorknobs in several of their kits. They’re just about the right size and look fine–if you get some brass straight pins you can have brass doorknobs!

Thanks Jetrock. . . why didn’t I think of that? I’m going to go try it right now.

I have used a pin as well, but I like a NBW (nut-bolt-washer) casting in an appropriate size better.

Andrew

The best doorknobs I’ve seen are the “light bulbs” that come with a set of Grandt Line light shades (the industrial lights that go over loading dock doors). They’re only slightly overscale (about 3" in diameter) and they look GREAT on structures.

Unfortunately, Grandt only packs one “bulb” per lamp shade, so you wind up with a lot of bulbless lights!

-Gerry