ChrisP

My father-in law has a doorknob in his house that is broken and will trap unsuspecting people inside the room when the door is closed (like my wife). He's had several handymen in to look at it. None can replace it with a knob of the IDENTICAL type as he's demanding.

I had the knob apart. The construction appears to be 1970's or later: There is extensive use of plastic inside of the knob and mechanism. The latch bolt has a feature I haven't seen before: The cam on the knob pushes against a plastic plunger on the end of the latch bolt. This engages a plastic pawl into a hole in another plastic piece that then retracts the latch bolt in allowing the door to open.

Does anyone know the name of the company that manufactured door knobs like this? Thanks.

In this weekend's New York Times they had an article about authentic charcoal kiln saunas. I'd like to try one. Are there any reasonably foreigner-friendly ones somewhere not to far from Seoul (Kangnam)?

Here is the original article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/world/asia/27iht...