Thread: Messmate in NZ

Hey Rex,

I had a bit of shed time this arvo after bowls. Started to cut some of your hinges out, (no box made as yet). These hinges when installed, are not supposed to allow the lid to sit back and stay at about 95 degrees are they?. The lids opens all the way back?

I'll have to create a fence if I am to use a roundover bit, for today I just sanded the curve on my bench sander, to the eye it looks ok.

Paul

Hi Paul,

The hinges will restrict the lid opening to just a bit past 90º. You can vary that by increasing the gap mentioned in the paragraph about drilling the pin holes. I suggested positioning the hole a little closer to the end, in this case 4 mm when the radius was 4.5 mm. You will see once you pin the two halves together how it works or maybe the photos below will demonstrate that one half of the hinge can pivot until it strikes the shoulder on the other half. Another way to increase the angle would be to taper the shoulders but if you want the hinge to open much past perhaps 100º then you need to use a different hinge.

IMG_5472.jpg IMG_5473.jpg IMG_5474.jpg

It doesn't really matter how you form the radius, your sanding disc and eyeball are perfectly okay. When I was originally taught how to make these hinges Norio Tanno made about 30 of them at once and the router was the right tool for the job. I use a cutter with a ball bearing because I happen to have one but using a fence is probably safer.

Thanks Rex, Yes I see now, from the third photo. Puts the idea clearer in my head how it will end up. I didn't get to drilling the holes today, just made the pieces. I'll drill the holes and play more with it.

Thank you very much,

Paul

Well Rex, (and others). I had been playing with your timber hinges over the last few weeks. But I just couldn't manage to get them as neat as you did. They opened and closed but the exposed gap was just a bit wonky, didn't look right. I tried twice, but with insufficient improvement, so I gave up. I didn't want to waste the timber and box I had already prepared for your hinges (Aust Red Cedar and Silver Ash), so I had to improvise to make it look good. Routered vertical matching slots at the front to match the rear. I think it ended up looking like an old treasure box, so was happy with the result.

I used another set of those $20 brass hinges I mentioned before that I had bought 5 sets of. But I made this box only 10mm thick, and for those hinges it really needs to be 12mm thick. I'm currently working on another 3 boxes to use up the other 3 sets of those hinges, then will decide if I want to buy any more.

Paul

Very nice save Paul, they don't look out of place at all. If you can't get those wooden hinges to work what hope have the rest of us got?
That Silver Ash must be fairly common in your area as I see Col using it a quite a bit on his presentations. I hardly even see it around my area.

Hi and thanks Dallas. I pretty much followed Rex's method, except for the roundover bit on the router table. Not easy routering end grain on a small piece of timber. I made a foot long concave sanding block routering a groove in it with a 1/2 inch cove bit, and glueing in some 120 grit sand paper using a dowel to clamp it in. The result looked good to me, but,.............!!!!

I bought a heap of Silver Ash from Boutique Timbers, so have a nice supply of it. Not sure where Mal gets it from. And yes Col uses a lot of it also.

Paul

Ahh Paul, sorry man. If you are having problems it is down to my explanation as it's really not a difficult process. Having said that, it's a lot easier to actually show someone who is standing beside you than it is to write an instruction which can't be misinterpreted.

Routing the ends should be quite straightforward. You should not be working on a small piece of timber - look again at post #6 and you'll see that I have taped together 6 pieces (enough to make 3 pairs of hinges) giving you an edge to route which is at least 150mm long. If you use a fence for this, which is the only safe way to do it, it shouldn't be a problem. The whole idea of taping several pieces together is to give you a reasonably substantial piece of wood to work with. You don't need to make several hinges if you don't want to, you could tape wide packing pieces made from scrap each side, but I generally make a bunch. That way if you don't like the odd one you can bin it and you don't need to start again.

Your method of grooving a sanding block should work fine or you could sand them round with a conventional sanding block and eyeball the round-over. It's actually not that critical as long as there is clearance for the hinge to rotate. About halfway down post #11 there is a bit about checking the hinge rotates without binding and sanding away any excess - if you get that right it should all work.....oh, and make sure the hole is in the centre.

I'm really sorry you had problems but I must compliment you on the way you've overcome them. The box is really beautiful and I can certainly understand that you were desperate not to spoil it, so I'm pleased (and impressed) that the method you have used has worked well. If you ever decide to give the hinges another try feel free to fire questions at me, I'll do my best to provide useful answers.

Rex