Stiffening hinges

[Chris Hogg]

My mother has a triple pane dressing-table mirror, but none of the hinges are tight enough to hold the mirrors in the position she sets them. Is there any 'glue' that would stiffen them up? I'm thinking of something like Loctite (but not Loctite, IYSWIM). The side panes hinge on normal hinges about vertical axes. The centre pane rotates on a horizontal axis on swivels. It would help if the swivels were positioned mid-way up the pane, so that when it was tilted, the resulting couple would be near zero, but they're about two-thirds of the way up, so the mirror always tends to hang exactly vertical. It could be changed, but I'd rather find some hinge-stiffener for all three panes, if such exists.

[PeterC]

WD40!

[Matty F]

Make some leather washers and put them around the hinge.

[ARWadsworth]

Nice one.

Adam

[NT]

The classic way is a tap to the hinge with a small hammer. Easy to overdo it though. A method I've not tried is to apply that very stiff oil used to cut down smoking of car engines.

NT

[R]

For the vertical hanging side mirrors remove the hinges and carefully re-rivet the ends of the pin through each to stiffen the hinge.

For the middle mirror remove the pivot and add (is space permits) a couple of fibre washers or alternatively a small turn or 2 of fine string etc to make a "clutch" out of it.

[Chris Hogg]

LOL! Given the reputation WD40 has on this NG, I might even try it!

[Chris Hogg]

Thanks. I'll try tapping it, although I might use a small punch as well as the light hammer, but I'm not sure she'd appreciate ?STP on her dressing table mirror!

[The Medway Handyman]

Thats your name on the list - come the revolution!

[Frank Erskine]

On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:19:45 GMT, "The Medway Handyman" had this to say:

Where can we see a copy of this list, Dave?

[Frank Erskine]

On Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:16:58 +0100, Chris Hogg had this to say:

Fix some sort of weight to the rear of the mirror near the top, to tend to balance out the extra mass below the hinges.

[Chris Hogg]

Now, that I like! Thanks.

[The Medway Handyman]

Us liberation front types have secret lists so there :-)

[geoff]

In message , Frank Erskine writes

He could show you, but then he'd have to kill you

WD40-boaring

[Mark]

Spray water on the hinges and wait for them to corrode ;-)