Making Custom Cabinet Hinges

[marcus]

Hi,

In the next couple of months I'm going to need to make some custom cabinet hinges from brass, something like this:

They're about two inches long.

As I see it I have three options:

1) Get someone else to make them for me
2) Make them by hand (somehow)
3) Finally invest in a small milling machine or lathe with a vertical slide, and mill them.

Assuming I decide to make them myself does anyone have any ideas about the best way to do it? The only metal working machine I have is a small drill press.

I would probably just cut them by hand out of flat bar if it wasn't for the lower piece which I'm not sure how to do. I suppose I could silver solder a piece on to the flat to make the L shape. Or perhaps file away the excess from a thicker piece, but this seems like an awful lot of filing, and I imagine quite hard to do well. Or should I just bite the bullet and get some kind of small milling solution? Or pay someone else (give me a quote if this is something you can do! I need four).

Thanks,

Marcus.

 

[dickm]

Depends on how smart a job you want! Hand work, silver soldering or brazing on the hinge sockets would probably be the most economical and quickest, but maybe not the most elegant.
On the other hand, if you want an excuse to buy a metalworking lathe or milling machine.....................

 

[marcus]

On the other hand, if you want an excuse to buy a metalworking lathe or milling machine.....................

Well of course I do But then I've resisted for several years, in spite of several good potential excuses along the way.....

Hand work, silver soldering or brazing on the hinge sockets would probably be the most economical and quickest, but maybe not the most elegant.

It does need to be very tidy, do you think the solder would be very visible once it was all neatened up and polished?

 

[jasonB]

Another option would be to make from 2" brass angle. You have not indicated the thickness but looks to be about 1/8" which is not the easiest to get a pin without more tooling through but if you went for 2 x 2 x 3/16 then just cut one leg down to leave the knuckle and used a 1/16" pin.

The slots for the knuckles would be easiest milled but careful filing would also do it.

Silver solder will tarnish after time you you will get a slight dark line at the joint

 

[mickthetree]

Could you cut the knuckle pieces our of some additional material and dovetail them in place? Like you would get on an infill plane? You might need to reverse it so the knuckle is the two part piece so they are not so close the the edges.

Just a thought, I have no idea if it would work

 

[marcros]

how many pairs are you needing? could they be sand cast if you were to make a sample from wood?

 

[Spindle]

Hi

Have you considered cannibalising commercial hinges for the mating sections / pins and silver soldering to 'arms' fabricated from plate? The silver solder joint could be protected from tarnishing by lacquering.

Regards Mick

 

[marcros]

out of interest, what is the typical tollerance between mating parts of a hinge?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

+1 Mick...That's what I thought.....it's a lot of work, otherwise. My metalwork's a bit rusty (bad pun) but would brazing give a better colour match? I'm assuming the melting point of a brazing rod is lower than that of brass - don't take my word for it.

 

[jasonB]

You risk a pile of molten metal if you braze as its a fine line between getting the braze to melt (875-896 C) and the brass melting around 930deg C.

Tollerance of a good pair of solid drawn butts would likely be less than 0.001" as you can't get anything into the gaps between knuckles thats why they are usually very hard to open with bare hands, you need the leverage of teh door to open them.

A good silver soldered joint in brass will be almost imposible to see but as I said a hairline black line will form over time but will still need close viewing to notice. The rectangular plate in this photo is silver soldered from 4 strips and you would be hard pushed to see the joint, the other part I also soldered from 3 pieces.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Yes, you'd never do it with melting points that close. Nice work, Jason, what was it you were making?

 

[jasonB]

Its the cover for the valve chest on a model steam engine, picture of the original second down in the following

http://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.p ... 705.0.html

And details of teh actual part

http://www.modelenginemaker.com/index.p ... l#msg16820

J

 

[Richard T]

I don't have a vast experience of brass and it what forms it is produced in but you can certainly get steel angle in many varying configurations.
Maybe there is such a product as 1/2" x 2" brass angle or similar - it would be worth the search as it would save a lot of scrap though not save any work unfortunately.

 

[marcus]

Thanks all, some good suggestions here.

I've decided that I'm not going to invest in a milling machine now, too expensive, too self indulgent, which leaves hand options.

Casting sounds interesting, but I think too much of a learning curve, and also I imagine would be too slow for this as I would need 8 components cast.

Using part of an existing commercially available hinge — again a good idea, but I don't think there are commercial products of the right size, and I'm not confident I could do it neatly enough.

Angle bar, that's a good suggestion. I've realised that the drawing I did is not quite right — the hinge will have to be made of 2 matching L sections like a normal butt hinge or will not open enough. So the short arm of the L needs to be quite a lot thicker than the long one and I don't think I'll find an off the shelf piece like this.

However it gave me an idea. I'm going to ask an engineer to quote me to provide a length of bar milled into the correct profile, from which I could cut out the pieces and drill etc by hand.

If that's too expensive I will try silver soldering a small block of brass onto the end of a thin bar so that the join, if visible at all, is hidden at the side of the hinge rather than facing you....

 

[xy mosian]

As you are going to use two 'L' sections. Would it be possible to use a double knuckle/pivot instead? That way all the bits would be flat.
xy

 

[marcus]

As you are going to use two 'L' sections. Would it be possible to use a double knuckle/pivot instead? That way all the bits would be flat.

Sorry, xy, not sure what you mean!

 

[xy mosian]

This is going to try my descriptive process.
Imagine the two larger pieces in the closed position, face to face. Now notch both at the hinge end and join with Brass versions of bicycle chain links. I am trying to describe a three piece hinge, with the middle piece being very short.
I'll try to do a sketchup of it.
xy

 

[xy mosian]

That was lucky, found an image that describes what I mean. I offer this as an explanation rather than a possible hinge.
http://www.screwfix.com/p/counter-flap- ... tAodLmEAaw

xy

 

[marcus]

Ah, got it. Nice idea, but I don't think it would like right on this piece.

 

[xy mosian]

Fair enough. xy