Router door hindge recess?

[Vass]

Can you use a router to make the recess for door hindges on the door and frame? plus the door catch recess's any links to jigs or methods TIA

[Andy Hall]

Yes.

Trend among others manufacture a jig

[Peter Ashby]

And our local B&Q warehouse stocks them. If you balk at the prices, a piece of harboard, a saw and guide collar for the router (also at the above B&Q) and you can make your own. Mind you for all that cost, time and effort you could have done it with a chisel.

Peter

[Stuart Noble]

Pity you can't get hinges with rounded corners. Maybe you can these days

[Peter Ashby]

Instead you get those that look like half a biscuit and you use a biscuit joiner to cut the slot. Don't look very strong to me. And of course if they sold round cornered hinges nobody could sell those corner chisels you hit with a hammer. Anyone would think chisels needed such skill to use...

Peter

[Lurch]

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 13:12:15 GMT, Stuart Noble mused:

You have been able to for years, all the hinges in this house have rounded corners and are fitted to frames and doors made off site and just screwed into the openings on site. The house was built in 1980.

[Pete C]

If just one door, I scribe out the hinge rebates, and use a 1/4" router/bit to very carefully rout to about 1/8" in from the scribed line, then finish off to the line with a sharp chisel.

I find it's best to go to rout 1/4" from the line then take off another 1/8", the router is much more controllable freehand when removing wood on only one side of the bit IYSWIM. Well worth a little practice on some scrap.

What I like is the router does the rebate to the exact depth needed. What I do sometimes is make a template for drilling /pilot/ holes for the hinge screws, that I can drop in the hinge recess and drill through.

cheers, Pete.

[Dave]

Get square cornered hinges and a file and a few minutes work and you have round ended hinges. Simple :-)

I wonder why I didn't think of doing that years ago, when I bought a router? Frowns and thinks again.

Dave

[George]

File them round :-) you can buy the corner punch for finishing off

[George]

No need,you can buy cutters for the corners they come in 2mm and 3mm quite adequate as I have 1 of each.

[Vass]

all good, thanks Pete

[Brian G]

Far easier and cheaper just to use a marking gauge, a very sharp chisel and a hammer (mallet if using wooden handled chisels) to cut the hinge housings - you have to use 'em on the frame anyway (unless you are prefabricating door and frame sets on the bench) - BTW all the listed tools are of a very good quality.

The same for the lock and latch housings, with the addition of the good old fashioned 'brace and bit' to drill the necessary holes - youngsters of today would be lost without 'lectric to drive their new fangled and sometimes very expensive 'use once and throw in the cupboard' power tools! LMAO

I personally wouldn't even consider using a router for hinges unless it was in the workshop and then only on a fairly long production run of door and frame sets.

Brian G

[John Rumm]

You can get a corner chisel :

[George]

Behave yourself a novice with a router can give you more accuracy and precision flatness for a hinge rebate than the same person who's never held a chisel and hammer to do carpentry work

The craftsman of yesteryear would died for todays electric gizmos and thats a fact.

[Brian G]

George,

I am a "craftsman of yesteryear" (well over 40 years in fact) and qualified to Advanced City and Guilds level (when they meant something) along with the Institute of Certified Carpenters certificate ( you've got to be certified to be a 'chippie' anyway) LOL and I must admit that the only tools I would ever have metaphorically "died" for are the modern day electric drills and decent a portable table saw.

Even now though, I do most of my work literally by hand - and I find far more enjoyment and satisfaction in doing so!

Ah but never mind! At least after I took early retirement some years ago, I took several fairly long full and part-time training courses at the local college to learn how to play with, build and repair that new fangled invention called the computer - along with an equivalent M.O.U.S (Microsoft Office Users Specialist) qualification to advanced level (and other applications) just to 'bring me into the modern age' - but I still have to get my son to set up the damned DVD player :-)

Brian G

[normanwisdom]

Absolutely agree with that. Taken the words out of my mouth!

cheers Jacob

[normanwisdom]

Corner chisel is just another completely unnecessary bit of kit which the likes of Axminster and co hope to sell to gullible amateurs - which applies to about 90% of their catalogue.

cheers Jacob

[normanwisdom]

Thats a long winded roundabout sort of way - if you can finish with a chisel why not start with a chisel? Much quicker believe me, and the depth no prob if marked up with guage and square. And why not use the hinge itself as the template?

cheers Jacob

[Peter Ashby]

Agreed, if people knew how to use a chisel they wouldn't need a thing like that.

Peter

[John Rumm]

Makes sense in a production environment - get results more quickly, and you don't need to fork out for someone who does know how to use a chisel.