Had to replace a piece of a door jam that was rotted out, now I need to cut out a hinge recess with rounded corners and I don't have a router.
I have a Dremel, does Home Depot sell any kind of bit for this purpose?
Any suggestions?
I've used wood chisels for that, but never for rounded corners. A quick google found this. Might do for your Dremel. Wish I had to do that. Good excuse for more Dremel stuff.
--Vic
On 2/24/2011 7:35 PM Ron spake thus:
Chisels and a knife. Sharp. Cut the straight edges first with a chisel. Scribe the corners with a knife. (A fresh utility blade knife works fine.) Hog out the waste with chisel(s).
Any large hobby store will have rounded woodcarving chisels. For a one-time use, I would use a sharp chisel to cut the straight parts, and a fresh blade in a utility knife or exacto to cut the corner curves. Use the sharp knife to score around the hinge to mark your cut lines. Unless the doorframe is hardwood, you can actually make the shallow cuts with a knife, and just use a sharp chisel to hog out the field. Make score cuts with chisel or knife to control the depth, and the other parts should just pop right out. It doesn't need to be perfect work as long as there are no high spots- the hinge will cover it.
If all this sounds scary, practice on a scrap piece of the same wood until you get the technique down. I haven't done it in twenty years, but would have no hesitation at doing it right now.
Nice sharp hand chisel.
Thanks....will take yours and the others advice about using a chisel and utility knife. I had already practiced on a piece of wood earlier but didn't think to make any scores (Duh).
Change the hinges to square cornered ones. They are not that expensive.
Or chisel out square or as close as you can to the rounded corners and use a little wood putty to fill in any imperfections. Once the door is installed, you'll never look at the hinges again.
Personally I never understood why they make hinges with round corners anyhow....
One final note, they do sell some jigs that are made for both round and square cornered hinges. You just drive them into the wood, and chiesl out inside of the outline. But they are costly. Square hinges are much cheaper.
On 2/24/2011 11:03 PM snipped-for-privacy@myplace.com spake thus:
Can you say "router" and "template"?
-snip-
So a router bit will do all the work. No chisel necessary.
Jim
How you figure? Square hinge requires only pencil, chisel, hammer.
nate
Trace around the hinge with a razor knife to the desired depth and then use a small width sharp chisel.
Simple. Find a piece of pipe, tubing, EMT, whatever, of the right (or close) diameter. Sharpen the end on your grinder and you have a neat round chisel for the corners.
Joe
Ok, I understand now. That's ALL they are made for then. I have a router but I've always chiseled them by hand. Just seems like too much work to use a router and get it straight. This ten means that to do the job by hand, DO NOT use round cornered hinges.
Has Harry _ever_ posted anything that was good?
Harry K
Nope. The taper on the end would be backwards for a good job. You would have gto sharpen the _inside_ of the tube for it to make a neat fit.
Harry K
On 2/25/2011 9:40 PM Harry K spake thus:
True dat.
Plus mild steel doesn't exactly make the best cutting tools. But I suppose it would work well enough for a one-time thing in soft wood.
I made a pair of similar tools that would actually be more suitable for this task out of a couple of old screwdrivers someone had tossed out. I ground the shafts into curved-chisel shapes, one convex, the other concave. (This was for cutting out index-tab cards out of illustration board; one light rap with a hammer and I got perfect round corners, internal and external).
But really, for most door hinges, as long as you're not working on a historic Georgian mansion or whatnot, just scribing the corners with a knife works fine.
For a door every few years I would stick with square hinges and a
*good*, *sharp* chisel. If you're looking at 2-3 doors on a job, spend some time shopping for a hinge template for that router.It takes some care to set up- [and all are not created equal]- but when you finally fire it up and everything fits perfectly, they are worth it.
Jim
Yep. I have screwed up more jambs and doors trying to 'freehand' with a router. But then paint does a wonder on covering slips and if too bad a bit of spackle or tapeing mud will do it. :)
Harry K
Put the door in place held there by the hinges you didnt replace. Place the hinge you are working on in place held there by the hinge pin. Trace around the hinge with a razor knife scoring deeply( thickness of hinge). Remove door and carve out pocket with hammer and chisel.
Jimmie
Cutting out for round cornered hinges is no more difficult than the square one. Use your hinge as a template and score around the hinge to the depth of the hinge. Piece of cake.
Jimmie
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