Thread: Teak keepsake/document box.

Thanks for showing us this Ruddy These are the best looking hinge arrangements I've seen anywhere and the potential for variety is endless - wish I'd thought of it

STEP 7
This will deal with making the inlays. You need to make a drilling jig so that every leaf has the pivot hole on the correct position.I made a simple drill jig as follows.
The hinge pin I use is made from 3/32 dia brass rod. I manage to get it from a good hobby shop that sells RC model cars helicopters etc.
From this point on, everything relies on going back to the reference face on the hinge leaves and also the hinge pockets. The hinge pins need a 3/32 dia hole drilled 6 mm from the pocket face and 3.5 mm from the squared end of the leaf. Because the right hand hinge is 8 mm wide I started the jig using some pieces of 9mm thick MDF.
I also used a small scrap of 10 mm thick aluminium for the top hole guide. I drilled one hole 3/32 dia as shown in the picture and inserted a small piece of the brass rod. Using the correct drill bit as a spacer I glued the back piece so the distance to the centre of the pin was 6mm. I then glued the small end piece in place using a smaller drill. screw on the aluminium plate on the front, turn the jig over and then drill through the hole into the aluminium to finish the jig.
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STEP 8
Drilling the inlays for the left hand side only.
This is why I made the inlays long enough to get two from each as you have to hold them against both the back face and end face when drilling. All holes referenced to the red face. Because we drilled the 6mm holes at the end of each trench it now means that the length of the inlays can be approximate. In this case about 25 mm long was enough to ensure one end was partly over the hole. I cut them to length with a Japanese saw.
Making these hinges with the larger hole at the end of the leaf makes it much easier later.
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STEP 9
Hinge pins from 3/32 dia brass.
Cut the hinge pins for the hinges about 25mm longer than what is required. the fit of the hinge pin on the leaves should be a neat slide fit. This picture shows the base hinge inlays and the pin.
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STEP 10
Right Hand Side Inlays
I had intended to make all the Right hand side inlays from teak but at this point I thought it worthwhile to see what would happen if I used acrylic from a pen blank. Now, half the hinge is going to be made from a turquoise faux “Motherof Pearl acrylic and the other half teak This is purely so I can get an idea of what the inlay could look like…
These Right hand side inlays need to be rounded on one end to match the trench. This then adds the difficulty that the distance from the rounded edge to the hinge pin hole becomes important. With the Left hand side inlays, none of this matters. Again because they were made long, it was easier to round both ends of the inlay.

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The inlays werefitted in the trenches and then a mark scribed where they should be cut. I over cut the length and then sanded back to length.
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More later

STEP 11
Drilling Right hand side inlays.
When these were all at the correct length they were all drilled with the 3/32 hole and dry assembled to make sure the fit was relatively easy into the pockets. At this stage you can hand sand the inlays to final thickness size if necessary. Again, the hinge pin was made about 25 mm longer than required.
STEP 12
Base clearance groove.
The base needs a clearance groove the full length of the base. The groove allows the lid to swing open and prevents binding.
This must be done before gluing any inlays in place. In this instance I marked the face with red pencil so I could clearly see how deep and where the edge of the groove came in relation to the back edge.
I used a 10 mm ball nose cutter. I try and get the groove qas close as possible to the rear of the box just leaving a 0.5mm flat.
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STEP 13
Fitting inlays
Left hand side base inlays.
These inlays are going to be glued into the base. Make sure that they slide in easily before applying glue. Remember which face is the reference.
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I use drills of the correct diameter to get the centreline of the hinge pin in the correct position. The centreline should be on the mid point of the over lap which is about 8 mm. In this case I set the centreline at 4 mm.
When I have glued these base inserts previously I used some Titebond3 glue as it has a long set up time.
On this prototype I used Gorilla glue because I had run out of Titebond. I think the set up time for Gorilla is about 4 nanoseconds because I barely had enough time to seat the inserts and get the hinge pin to rest on the drill packers. A lesson learnt, use glue with along set up time.
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. Right hand side inlays.
Because there is no hole at the end these inlay trenches the inlays have to be an exact length. Earlier I showed how I marked the length for these inlays. Ít is better to cut then slightly long say 1/64. At this stage you can drill the hinge pin hole. Then using the same packing drills as step 1 above, place the assembly of 4 inlays with the pin into the pocket. You can then see if they are too long because the brass hinge pin will not touch the packing drills. Adjust by reducing the length of the inlays taking some stock off the radiused end.Make sure you do a neater job of this than I have done here.
Because this right hand side has some acrylic inlays, I used a 24 hour two part epoxy to glue the inlays in place.
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When the glue has set withdraw the hinge pins using pliers. At this stage you should have two sets of base hinge inlays with a correctly aligned hinge pin hole in each.
STEP 14
Cutting hinge pins to length
Cut the hinge pin to the final length. I make them about 0.5mm shorter than the pocket width.
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STEP 15
Shaping the lower inlays
To allow the lid to swing open, it is necessary to radius the inlays on the base. I have chosen to do that at this point and I simply use a rasp/file to get the shape and it is all done by eye. When I made the keepsake box I rounded this shape as individual leaves before i glued them in. It also let me polish them first.
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STEP 16
.Lid inlays Left hand side.
These are cut to approx length as previously. Here I aim to have the end of the inlay going about 1/3 of the way into the 6mm hole at the end of the trench. The actual length is not critical as long as you have some of the inlay encroaching on the 6mm hole.
Lid inlays on Right hand side
This is similar to mounting the lower inlays. Make the inlay as long as the trench and then drill the hinge hole with the jig. At this stage you can thread the inlays onto hinge pin in order and dry assemble the parts. I purposely made these slightly too long and then got the exact fit by reducing the length on the radiused end.
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STEP 17
Final glue up.
Before the final glue up you can slide the lid and base together and make sure that the split line is perfectly even and that the upper inlays all seat home. Because the inlays protrude about 1 mm from the back face you will not be able to fully open the hinge. When you later remove that 1 mm and make the back flush the hinge should fully open.
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This picture shows the hinge ready for glue up. I use the 2 part slow setting epoxy for the final glue up as you need plenty of time to get everything in place and the inlays seated home. Absolutely imperative that you do not get any glue in the hinge overlap area. I chose to have the lid side on the bench upside down and then carefully applied the glue to the trench areas only. The big benefit with this system is that everything automatically lines up so getting the fit right between a base and lid on a box is a breeze.
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Final clean up.
After the glue had set, I used a small block plane and an orbital sander to remove the excess inlay stock.
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The next step is to plug the 6 mm holes. To do this I would normally make some teak dowels 1/4 dia and redrill the 6mm holes to 1/4’diameter. Here I made the 1/4” dia plugs from some red acrylic to see how it would look. The plugs can be matching timber. they are there for appearnace but they make the hinge assembly much easier.
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Here are some pictures of the final prototype hinge.
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I love this kind of wood #### especially with such explicit pictures . Absolutely brilliant tutorial thanks Ruddy.

Wow, what a box! I don't come here often, but I'm glad I did today. That s fabulous.

Hi Ruddy, me again. I have saved your tutorial for future reference and now have a question on the cutting of the hinge pockets. Did you router cut these freehand or use a guide bush and template or use a fence or . . .?
Cheers

Hi Otakirilad,
I cut the pockets on an old mill I have. It came from a very old pattern shop, Originally a Taiwanese machine made in the 70's. It can be set up with a router head but since I bought a set of ER25 collets I just use it as an overhead router. Has a mile of backlash but as long as you remember which direction you came from, seems to work.

Beautiful work!

Ruddy excellent box. Where do you buy your acrylic from to make the hinges?
Is the acrylic you use like the kind for sold surface counter tops?

Hi Woodtec.
The acrylic I used for the hinge leaves came from pen blanks. These are the blanks the penmakers buy from various pen parts suppliers. They usually come in various colours and the blanks are about 3/4" square x about 6 "long.

Stunning work of art - and even more brilliant explanations. Thanks.

Beautiful!! Just beautiful.

Regards,

Rob

Ruddy this is a shining example of what I like about these fora!!

#Brilliant and imaginative work

# Wonderful sharing of details and processes.



Many thanx for the effort you put into sharing this with us!!