Fixing a buggy door handle with a wooden thingy

(Disclaimer: I'm not a locksmith)

One of our door handles broke recently - pull it and it'd come off:

It'd only come off when turning down, or pulling. Turning up still works fine:

Closer inspection: looks like the bit around the latch holding the handle to everything else has worn off into a slope. Instead of acting as a wall, it now acts as a ramp, which then depresses the latch which then frees everything.

How one typically disengages the latch, in case they really want to take the handle out for some reason:

Indeed,

1. when turning upwards, the latch works fine (that side's not worn),
2. it also works fine when turning downwards with twisting (to torque it and prevent it from slipping),
3. but it fails if you push down without twisting like a normal person

How to fix? I first considered restoring that worn out slope back into a perpendicular wall somehow (glue? filing? solder? welding?) but couldn't come up with any method that (1) seemed strong enough for a few years, plus (2) that I actually had experience + tools for.

But having had the fortune to inspect another similar handle before, where I noticed a removable plastic bit at the opposite end, I realized I could maybe add a small thing to apply torque from that opposite end instead. The channels on both components seem to support this idea:

I have some woodworking tools and 18mm thick Birch plywood (from that time I made a stool for my first go at woodworking), and 18mm seems like a reasonable depth for the thingy, so I think we could fashion a wooden thingy that might do the trick.

let's roll with it

Noting down some measurements for the piece that'd have to be fabricated:

I could transfer these measurements onto the wood... but then everything is so tiny. Probably more precise to draft it in Inkscape...

then paste the printout onto a Birch plywood scrap which has a nub end that seems just the right size:

Printing out 8 templates in case I screw up 7 times

Then cutting it out with a jigsaw:

Aren't you a cute little thing!

Really important for the jigsaw blade to be as close to 90° square as possible. At this scale, having the bottom cut deviate even by a millimeter could make the result too big or too small.

Since I couldn't get mine dead-on 90°, I also erred on the side of overcutting rather than undercutting on the bottom - that way excess could still be sanded off.

Attempting an initial fit. Too big to go all the way in, as kinda expected with that slight overcut.

So lots of passes of sanding with 80grit sandpaper (coarsest grit I have) and trying if it'll fit now:

After enough passes, finally it fits!

Leaving a comment so the next maintainer won't flip out.

Hah not over yet

But there is a problem!

That's right, the push-button lock no longer works! Turns out the pointy bit of the thingy gets in the way when the push-button wants to depress inwards.

So a final amendment is to saw off part of the protruding bit so there's enough clearance for the push-button mechanism. Sketch because I forgot to take a photo:

Some sawing off-camera later... finally putting it all together:

Success! The crisis concludes. This handle lives to turn another day.

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