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  1. #1
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    Default A simple trinket box

    Hi all, I recently purchased 5 pairs of the $20 solid brass "stop butt hinges" which are available from a couple of suppliers in Australia. I've never bought any of these stop butt hinges before and just wanted to try them out. I notice Gifkin Col has been using these and also the very expensive Brusso ones in his videos lately. I used Col's routering techniques, these hinges are 1 inch hinges and I bought a 1 inch router bit. Naturally the routered cavity was a tad under the 1 inch and I had to move my fence a tad to counteract. They dont really fit as easy as I had hoped, always a bit of fiddling about a bit. I prepared my timber to 12mm, but for the next box I think I might try 11mm, just to eliminate the amount of timber (at the rear under the hinge) that is needed to be removed to allow the hinges to pivot. I also put a slight bevel on the back to assist in this process.

    So hoping the next similar box is a bit easier, before I think about outlaying the money required for the Brusso ones.

    The finished box itself, I was very happy with. Some very old AR Cedar from my stash, and Silver Ash.

    Paul
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  3. #2
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    Apr 2014
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    Kew, Vic
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    Default

    Hi Paul,

    Another lovely box to add to the excellent collection on your Etsy site - which I just happened to be browsing last night.

    I've fitted a few pairs of those hinges lately (6 pairs I think) on some boxes for the local neighbourhood house to sell to raise money.

    Don't use them much as I don't like the square knuckle and I find I need to redrill the countersinks to fit a proper screw in. I do have a jig I made some years ago to fit them and this helps. It uses a bearing guided router bit and a handheld router. I'll take a pic and post it tomorrow.

    I like the quality of Brusso's hinges but again the square knuckles drive me nuts. Anyway, at $A42 for a JB102 stopped butt hinge and $48 for an SR638 side rail hinge they are too expensive for the hassle (my opinion only). If I have to pay $A42 I'll buy round-knuckle "four passes on the router table and you're done" side rail hinges from Ian Hawthorne. He now has a big CNC machine in house and makes them himself. They are nominally GBP30 a pair but he doesn't charge VAT for overseas orders which takes them down to GBP25 and he takes another GBP2 off if you buy a few pairs.

    Here's the link: Jewellery Box Hinges Archives ~ Box Hinges | Side Rail Hinges | Brass Box Hinges

    The Neat hinge as he calls it is similar to Andrew Crawford's Smarthinge which I still prefer, but Smarthinge is quite a bit more expensive at GBP33 per pair and I've never had the VAT knocked off. Much though I love Andrew's product paying GBP33 against GBP23 is a big ask unless you're selling boxes at the high end.

    Best regards,

    Brian

  4. #3
    Join Date
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    Default

    Very nice again Paul. It almost looks like Col made it seeing those contrasting colours of the timbers. Silver Ash is not real common around these parts so I have never worked with it.
    I'm sure you will come up with a way of fitting those hinges in an efficient way.
    What's the name of your Etsy store.
    Dallas

  5. #4
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    Default

    Paul,

    Here are three pics of the jigs I use for these hinges. One for left/bottom + right/top and the other for right bottom +left top. The locating bars underneath each are glued into routed channels. The hinge rebate was cut on the table saw and is an exact aperture for the hinge side to side and from the front of the hinge leaf to the centre of the pin.

    05D37833-AECB-4170-B9AC-52D31BF53B57.jpeg
    CEEB2A3A-A965-4AB9-AFEB-678534DE2180.jpeg

    The jig is simply lined up with the back edge of the box, clamped to the box as seen below then the hinge rebate is routed using a short pattern routing bit with a top bearing to run against the template. A little cleaning up at the corners with a chisel of course. This will still mean you have to cut the clearance for the swing of the hinge at the back.

    However, if you're willing to fit the hinges so only the main plate of the hinge sits on the box and the knuckle is completely outside the line of the box you can simply make a jig with a shallower rebate. That approach is the "approved" method for fitting Brusso's equivalent of this hinge. This was taken from their fitting instructions:

    "When installing the stop hinge it is critical to mortise the lid to the leaf only, leaving the entire barrel to protrude from the back of the case."


    31DD25DD-9118-455A-A94A-7390433AFFAF.jpeg

    Hope this makes sense, Paul.

    Best regards,

    Brian

  6. #5
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    Default

    Hi Brian and Dallas,

    Brian, I just revisited that site you posted. I have looked at it before in the past, but always thought his prices were just too high. Just looking at it again, the prices are not too bad. $46 for his Brass Neat Elite hinge (plus postage). For my larger boxes I still use those original McJing type hinges, which I now have 22 pairs left in stock. These were from the Woodcraft USA where I paid $31 for each pair including postage by buying 25 pairs of them. You might recall I bought all the ones McJing had left prior to that, all used now.

    I know you dont like the square knuckle, which these ones have. Just takes another ten minutes to work the timber to make them pivot. But when you open the box they look exactly the same as the Andrew C ones. (I still have 3 pairs of AC ones saved for a rainy day). So when these 22 pairs start to get low I will look at the Ian H hinges.

    I'll knock up another box soon to try and make those stop butt hinges a bit easier to install but I dont think I am going to get carried away with them. I agree with your remarks about the Brusso hinges at the price, even though I have never bought them. There is just something about opening a box and seeing a nice solid brass side rail type hinge fitted.

    Dallas, Thanks for your kind comments. Yes Col uses that combination of ARC and Silver Ash a lot. He obviously has a supplier who prepares and dresses all his timber for him. There was a chap who was supplying exotic timbers just north of Coffs Harbour, but I heard second hand he has moved his business to up around the Brisbane area. (I met the bloke at the Maleny Wood Expo 2019), hasnt been an expo since.

    My Etsy site, I must admit the sales have really gone quiet of late, I think its the way things are at present. On the Etsy forum everyone is saying the same thing around the world. I'm working on a "custom" box for a woman down in Melbourne at present, a returning customer from last year, thats about it at the moment. Gives me a chance to play with other things like resin.

    Handmade jewellery and trinket boxes In by PaulsTimberCreations (etsy.com)

    Paul

  7. #6
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    Default

    oops, Brian's post come through the same time I was typing mine out. I'll read it after I have shower.

    Paul

  8. #7
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    Some very beautiful boxes on there Paul.

  9. #8
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    I have used the square back butt hinges but find them too expensive and a bit of a fiddle to fit . I have gone back to using good quality round knuckle brass hinges. I now house the hinge until the knuckle is flush with the back of the box. Before fitting the hinges, I remove the corner at 45 degrees down to the bottom of the hinge rebate on both the lid and box. This way the lid stays up a little past vertical, how far depends on how much of the corner you remove.

    Jim
    Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important...

  10. #9
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    Hi and thanks Brian, yes I follow that excellent tutorial and photos. That router bit is like a mini flush trim router bit. Very interesting, just follow the template and clean up the corners with a chisel. I was a bit suprised that Brusso had the knuckle totally protruding at the rear,..hmmm. The way Gifkin Col had on his videos was the router cut was all the way through the side of the timber, making the front of the leaf flush with the timber. Hence, that is what I was trying to do.

    So in the case of the $20 hinges I purchased, if I was using 12mm timber (like in my pic) and your jig, the square back of the hinge would protrude out the back and maybe hardly any timber would need be removed for the pivot, or perhaps a small bevel top and bottom along the rear. I'd have to try that to see if that would be correct or not.

    For screwing the hinges on, I am assuming if the hinge is pushed into the cavity and pre drilled top and bottom, and then screwed on, it should all line up nice and flush everywhere?

    Thanks again,

    Paul

  11. #10
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    Default

    Yes, that's pretty much it, Paul. I cheat a tiny bit by pre-marking the inner edge of the hinge recess using a Veritas inlay tool. Really just a type of marking gauge with a very sharp and thin cutting knife blade. Then when I'm cleaning up I can be sure I have the inner edges absolutely square. Likewise I mark the two sides of the hinge rebate with a scalpel and an engineers square so I know everything is true. Trimming the corners I work in little bites and "creep up on it" using a lovely little 3mm Japanese chisel I picked up second hand. Doing this I haven't had any problems with the top and bottoms lining up although I put only one screw in each leaf to begin with so I can shift the second one slightly if need be.

    The biggest challenges I've found with these particular hinges are a) getting the depth of the rebate correct - I find some of the hinge leaves are slightly different in thickness, and b) the countersinks on the screw holes are too shallow resulting in boxes not closing correctly. I solve the second problem by simply drilling deeper countersinks. If I need to finess the bottom of the rebate or be 100% sure I've got everything absolutely level from the corner cleaning I use a small Lie Nielsen router plane for the final skim.

    I agree it's weird to have the knuckle hanging all the way out a la Brusso. People seem to accept that you change the look of your box to suit the hinge rather than the other way around. Crazy.

    Best regards,

    Brian

  12. #11
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    Thanks Brian, you certainly have some tricky little probably rare to find tools tucked away in your shed cupboard.

    I shall ponder on all of this,

    Paul

  13. #12
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    Default

    Nice box Paul. I like the contrasted timbers. Can you put up a link to the hinges you are using?

    Cheers
    Jacques

  14. #13
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    Hi Jacques,

    Good to see you here. Still studying?

    Brian

  15. #14
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    Hi Jacques,

    Thank you. I know of two suppliers in Australia that sell that hinge I used. I would be 99.9% sure they are the exact same hinge from either. The first one is Jim Carrol's

    CWS Store - Solid Brass 90 degree Lock Butt Hinge 1" pair (cwsonline.com.au)

    But I notice they are out of stock.

    The other one is Michael's

    90 Degree Butt Hinges Archives - Hardware For Creative Finishes (veneerinlay.com.au)

    I bought the pack of 5 as the discount covers the cost of the postage and your still under the $100 mark for the 5 pairs. I met Michael at the 2019 Maleny Wood Expo, nice chap.

    As a matter of interest, today I started on the 4 sides for the exact same box again, did the dovetails. But I intend to use Rex's timber hinge that has been discussed on another thread. All for an experiment and see how it turns out. I made a couple of test runs on Rex's timber hinges, one I had the hole 4mm from the end but found there was too much gap. Other I had the hole 5mm from the end and was happy with that. I'll work out a way to keep everything centred, that is obviously one of the the main keys to that timber hinge. Not sure if I will do the same panel frame lid, still thinking.

    And still pondering on Brian's jig,...!!

    Paul

  16. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by homey View Post
    Hi Jacques,

    Good to see you here. Still studying?

    Brian
    Thanks Brian, still going. Plan to finish early December [emoji4]

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