I just cannot see how the secure 2×4 bar holder works! Help!

A reader wrote “I just can’t figure out how this things works. I’m pretty bad mechanically and need all the help I can get. If you can point me in the right direction I’d greatly appreciate it”.

Same with me fellow reader! I’m an electrical engineer not a mechanical!

I’m assuming you are talking about my locking kit more than anything. I think if I pass along a couple of really high level ideas in this post, you’ll have that aha-moment.

First, to really simplify the discussion, forget about locking at all.

If you put a CLOSED 2×4 bar holder on EACH side of your doors on the frame of the shed, you can slide a 2×4 into those bar holders and your doors will both stay shut nicely.

The only problem is that it is WAY TOO EASY to slide out the bar by bad actors.

So… all you have to do is keep the bar from sliding.

This is the trick…

Take ONE of the bar holders with the locking tab and from the back, fasten it to the BAR. You should do this so that you can slide the bar into the loops and the locking tab on the BAR matches up to the locking tab closed bar holder you put on the door frame.

Then on the OPEN bar holder included in the kit, you can decide if you want to use it or not. I use it to simply prop up the 2×4 bar so it doesn’t fall down when I open the shed door.