Invent Design Make

Step 15 – Hinges

The hinges we have are quite nice stainless steel ball bearing ones.  They are Grade 11 (for info on the different grades of hinges, check here), which is fairly good, and should be fine with four per door.  So first mark up about 160mm from the top and then in four equal increments along the length of the door, where the hinges will go.

You can use a home made router jig to do the indents for them.  Do plenty of tests on scrap ’til your happy…

The corners need finishing by hand, which is quite a satisfying job.

Onto the last one – the jig in action.

Once we have all the hinge positions all sorted on the door, put them on with a few screws (pre-drilling for all screw holes is definitely necessary in oak).  Now it is possible to slide the doors into the frame one at a time – an exceptionally exciting moment.

Anyway, once you have the doors in the frame, for me it was a very tight fit (which was planned) so they needed a little planing.  Put some small shims under the doors and mark off the top and bottom positions of the hinges on the door frame with a sharp knife.

Now you can use the same router jig on the frame. It is slightly more tricky because it is on a vertical surface, but not a problem unless you have a huge router.

This should leave us with perfectly corresponding hinge rebates in the fame and doors.  We are getting close now.