SmartButt hinges - first impression

[Blackswanwood]

Andrew Crawford has just launched a new hinge for box makers called SmartButt. (Stop sniggering at the back …)

Like his SmartHinge they are stop hinges but don’t rely on a square knuckle. This means they do not protrude as far and look much better.

Although not cheap it is a thing of beauty.

Its nearest Brusso equivalent is the JB102 which looks quite ugly by comparison. I’ve photographed them together - Brusso is the lower one.

This picture shows the side profile against a Brusso JB101 and JB102. When fitted all of the pin on the Brusso hinges has to be exposed whereas with the SmartButt only half of the pin will be.

I haven’t fitted the SmartButts yet and will add a picture when I do.

 

[imageel]

I had to take a look at their website to get my head around why such a simple change alters the geometry in terms of fitment and still haven't quite got my head around it!
It must be - although not so obvious in your pictures above that the upper half of the hinge must be rotating about a smaller radius relative to the hinge pin centre to achieve both the smaller hinge offset when closed and thus reducing the lid offset when open.
For sure a much nicer fit but wow! at an eye watering price!!
Ed

 

[smartBoxmaker]

Andrew Crawford has just launched a new hinge for box makers called SmartButt. (Stop sniggering at the back …)

Like his SmartHinge they are stop hinges but don’t rely on a square knuckle. This means they do not protrude as far and look much better.

View attachment 155932

Although not cheap it is a thing of beauty.

Its nearest Brusso equivalent is the JB102 which looks quite ugly by comparison. I’ve photographed them together - Brusso is the lower one.

View attachment 155933

This picture shows the side profile against a Brusso JB101 and JB102. When fitted all of the pin on the Brusso hinges has to be exposed whereas with the SmartButt only half of the pin will be.

View attachment 155934
I haven’t fitted the SmartButts yet and will add a picture when I do.

Thanks Robert! Let me know how you get on fitting them.

 

[smartBoxmaker]

I had to take a look at their website to get my head around why such a simple change alters the geometry in terms of fitment and still haven't quite got my head around it!
It must be - although not so obvious in your pictures above that the upper half of the hinge must be rotating about a smaller radius relative to the hinge pin centre to achieve both the smaller hinge offset when closed and thus reducing the lid offset when open.
For sure a much nicer fit but wow! at an eye watering price!!
Ed

Hi, Imageel - Andrew Crawford here.

Thank you for your comments re the smartButt. I have attached a couple of pics and a video which I hope will help explain the geometry of it.

The eye-watering price? - well, a little more expensive than the ugly [IMHO] square-knuckled Brusso JB-103, but considerably cheaper than the Brusso JB-107, and infinitely better designed, better made, better finished and better looking than either of them! IMHO-AMO

 

[imageel]

Hi Andrew - thanks for the reply. For sure that looks a far neater hinge in comparison to the square knuckled ones and either open or closed achieves far more pleasing lines!.
WRT price - it's a long time since I've done any hinged cabinetry so maybe a little out of touch with current day prices for quality ironmongery - so I guess my comment wrt price was a little unfair.
For sure I would agree your hinges look better finished and fit far more neatly and if cheaper than the Brusso item then it would definitely be my go-to if I was in the market for them!
Ed

 

[smartBoxmaker]

Hi Andrew - thanks for the reply. For sure that looks a far neater hinge in comparison to the square knuckled ones and either open or closed achieves far more pleasing lines!.
WRT price - it's a long time since I've done any hinged cabinetry so maybe a little out of touch with current day prices for quality ironmongery - so I guess my comment wrt price was a little unfair.
For sure I would agree your hinges look better finished and fit far more neatly and if cheaper than the Brusso item then it would definitely be my go-to if I was in the market for them!
Ed

All understood, Ed - thanks for your comments!

 

[Inspector]

Nice hardware. A link would have saved me searching for them. Bookmarked now.
Andrew is there a Canadian distributor for them if I ever have a worthy project? If not ordering direct is no problem.

Pete

 

[smartBoxmaker]

Nice hardware. A link would have saved me searching for them. Bookmarked now.
Andrew is there a Canadian distributor for them if I ever have a worthy project? If not ordering direct is no problem.

Pete

Hello Pete - thanks for your message and kind comment. Worldwide sales are direct from me, there are no distributors - so when you have that worthy project, just order direct from smartBoxmaker.com - https://www.smartboxmaker.com/product/smartbutt/. Thanks.

 

[johnnyb]

just to say I didn't need a brandy after seeing the price! not to bad tbh.

 

[smartBoxmaker]

just to say I didn't need a brandy after seeing the price! not to bad tbh.

Hi, Johnny - thanks for your message, but I'm not sure of your point ...

 

[johnnyb]

just saying they don't seem to expensive. is the price for a pair?

 

[smartBoxmaker]

Understood - thanks! Most are outraged at the price, which was why I wasn't sure ... Any who've bought and used them understand and appreciate the quality, and therefore the cost. Yes, the price is for a pair.

 

[Puggers]

I think the cost alone of such things can’t be considered in isolation, as is often the case.

If you put the effort and cost into selecting the right wood perhaps with complementary veneers then spend hours in crafting a box, it’s probably worth the cost in having a sleek set of hinges fitted to it rather than something that might arguably undo all your efforts.

If you’ve made the box for someone else, they may not appreciate or be bothered about the cost, but they’ll hopefully understand the overall quality of finish.

I’ve handled both sets of hinges Andrew offers above and they are simply class! It’s not a matter of hinge snobbery (honest, guv) it’s absolutely a matter of personal circumstances and choice given other options are available.

Dave

 

[mwinfrance]

Thanks to Blackswanwood for the OP and to smartBoxmaker for the link.
Ps..smartBoxmaker, your site is veeeery slow, it times out constantly on me so have been unable to get to it.My speed to elsewhere is fast, you should talk to your host.

 

[smartBoxmaker]

Hi MW - sorry you had a problem with the smartBoxmaker site. I have not experienced any such problems, and I've not had any other feedback to that effect. It is an image heavy site, but they're all reasonable sized images. There is a 'paper' background image which can slow things slightly ... It's also a wordpress site and there can be delays there. Anyway, thanks for the feedback, and I will pass that on to my host. Please try again and I wish you better luck this time.

 

[smartBoxmaker]

I think the cost alone of such things can’t be considered in isolation, as is often the case.

If you put the effort and cost into selecting the right wood perhaps with complementary veneers then spend hours in crafting a box, it’s probably worth the cost in having a sleek set of hinges fitted to it rather than something that might arguably undo all your efforts.

If you’ve made the box for someone else, they may not appreciate or be bothered about the cost, but they’ll hopefully understand the overall quality of finish.

I’ve handled both sets of hinges Andrew offers above and they are simply class! It’s not a matter of hinge snobbery (honest, guv) it’s absolutely a matter of personal circumstances and choice given other options are available.

Dave

Thanks for your kind comments, Dave.

 

[mwinfrance]

OT
Still cannot even get to the front page ( image heavy or not would make no difference )..nor would the fact that it is running on wordpess.
I ran tracepath ( which would be traceroute on windows ) ..All my computers ( 14 in all ) that are allowed to connect to the web are various flavours of linux.Life is too short to run windows net facing.
tracepath says
1?: [LOCALHOST] pmtu 1500
1: _gateway 0.413ms
1: _gateway 0.325ms
2: station13.multimania.isdnet.net 20.328ms
3: strasbourg-crs8-1-be1004.intf.routers.proxad.net 26.987ms
4: linx1.uk.othellotech.net 26.518ms
5: ipv4gw4.as29527.net 26.945ms asymm 6
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Too many hops: pmtu 1500
Resume: pmtu 1500
***************************
you appear to be being hosted by astutium.I have no problem reaching them at all, at astutium.com, but the next "hop" on their system to your site is "no reply"..Either you have a config problem ( easliy done with wordpress, especially if you are using plug ins ) or you are blocking EU or French IPs ( if so, silly to block potential customers, 500 million of us, although not all box makers ) or you are running a hosting package which has not enough RAM or Bandwidth.They have 3 wordpress packages, but clicking "learn more" on any of them goes nowhere, so their "limits" are hidden .looking at their front page, all their offers are IMO/IME expensive for very low spec, hardly any disk space, hardly any RAM, low grade old CPUs and horribly low bandwidth..even on their £80.oo pcm packs and dedi server deal.looking at the "reseller" offers and their "data center" page..I 'd bet dollars to donuts that they are reselling someone else's white label hosting and do not have their own DC.Hence the low specs for the money on their packs. You say no-one else has mentioned any problems, the thing is, if they can't get to the front page ( let alone any "feedback" form you may have or see your email contact page ) , they couldn't tell you about any problems, , like me they'd be getting a blank page and a "the server is taking to long to reply" message in their browser tab, so, they'd just move on. Could just be a badly configured plug in, or an IP block ( but that would normally 403 ), but their packs are very low spec and if you have image heavy pages, they'll ( host ) likely "throttle" your site, without telling you.
I can't recommend a UK host, last time I had any hosting in the UK it was my own hi-spec box in a colo with T1 speeds over 10 years ago..
Could also be that you are running magento ? ( they offer it ) veeeeeerrrrry slow cart, especially running on low spec machines like they offer, worse if there are a lot of sites on the same box.
Anyway ..nice hinges
You could look into cloudshare ,( I think that ukworkshop.co.uk use them ) they have a free tier, that can help to "buffer" , but your site still has to be reachable behind them for it to work.
/OT

 

[smartBoxmaker]

OT
Still cannot even get to the front page ( image heavy or not would make no difference )..nor would the fact that it is running on wordpess.
I ran tracepath ( which would be traceroute on windows ) ..All my computers ( 14 in all ) that are allowed to connect to the web are various flavours of linux.Life is too short to run windows net facing.
tracepath says
1?: [LOCALHOST] pmtu 1500
1: _gateway 0.413ms
1: _gateway 0.325ms
2: station13.multimania.isdnet.net 20.328ms
3: strasbourg-crs8-1-be1004.intf.routers.proxad.net 26.987ms
4: linx1.uk.othellotech.net 26.518ms
5: ipv4gw4.as29527.net 26.945ms asymm 6
6: no reply
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30: no reply
Too many hops: pmtu 1500
Resume: pmtu 1500
***************************
you appear to be being hosted by astutium.I have no problem reaching them at all, at astutium.com, but the next "hop" on their system to your site is "no reply"..Either you have a config problem ( easliy done with wordpress, especially if you are using plug ins ) or you are blocking EU or French IPs ( if so, silly to block potential customers, 500 million of us, although not all box makers ) or you are running a hosting package which has not enough RAM or Bandwidth.They have 3 wordpress packages, but clicking "learn more" on any of them goes nowhere, so their "limits" are hidden .looking at their front page, all their offers are IMO/IME expensive for very low spec, hardly any disk space, hardly any RAM, low grade old CPUs and horribly low bandwidth..even on their £80.oo pcm packs and dedi server deal.looking at the "reseller" offers and their "data center" page..I 'd bet dollars to donuts that they are reselling someone else's white label hosting and do not have their own DC.Hence the low specs for the money on their packs. You say no-one else has mentioned any problems, the thing is, if they can't get to the front page ( let alone any "feedback" form you may have or see your email contact page ) , they couldn't tell you about any problems, , like me they'd be getting a blank page and a "the server is taking to long to reply" message in their browser tab, so, they'd just move on. Could just be a badly configured plug in, or an IP block ( but that would normally 403 ), but their packs are very low spec and if you have image heavy pages, they'll ( host ) likely "throttle" your site, without telling you.
I can't recommend a UK host, last time I had any hosting in the UK it was my own hi-spec box in a colo with T1 speeds over 10 years ago..
Could also be that you are running magento ? ( they offer it ) veeeeeerrrrry slow cart, especially running on low spec machines like they offer, worse if there are a lot of sites on the same box.
Anyway ..nice hinges
You could look into cloudshare ,( I think that ukworkshop.co.uk use them ) they have a free tier, that can help to "buffer" , but your site still has to be reachable behind them for it to work.
/OT

Well - the vast majority of that is above my pay grade/knowledge level website wise! But I will forward this to my friendly host and see what they say. I do plenty of business through the site, so some must be able to access it ... Anyway, thank you for taking the trouble to let me have the benefit of your knowledge and feedback!

 

[mwinfrance]

You are welcome
I've been running sites and servers since the late 90s, began coding back in 74 ( at Art School would you believe ) . Life drawing, photography, printing, graphic design and Punch cards.
We had fortran and COBOL..I've added other languages since.
..as you say , some will be able to get in..
But once you ( or your visitors ) go over the allocated specs, others won't..or it will "time out".

 

[Puggers]

OT
Still cannot even get to the front page ( image heavy or not would make no difference )..nor would the fact that it is running on wordpess.
I ran tracepath ( which would be traceroute on windows ) ..All my computers ( 14 in all ) that are allowed to connect to the web are various flavours of linux.Life is too short to run windows net facing.
tracepath says
1?: [LOCALHOST] pmtu 1500
1: _gateway 0.413ms
1: _gateway 0.325ms
2: station13.multimania.isdnet.net 20.328ms
3: strasbourg-crs8-1-be1004.intf.routers.proxad.net 26.987ms
4: linx1.uk.othellotech.net 26.518ms
5: ipv4gw4.as29527.net 26.945ms asymm 6
6: no reply
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27: no reply
28: no reply
29: no reply
30: no reply
Too many hops: pmtu 1500
Resume: pmtu 1500
***************************
you appear to be being hosted by astutium.I have no problem reaching them at all, at astutium.com, but the next "hop" on their system to your site is "no reply"..Either you have a config problem ( easliy done with wordpress, especially if you are using plug ins ) or you are blocking EU or French IPs ( if so, silly to block potential customers, 500 million of us, although not all box makers ) or you are running a hosting package which has not enough RAM or Bandwidth.They have 3 wordpress packages, but clicking "learn more" on any of them goes nowhere, so their "limits" are hidden .looking at their front page, all their offers are IMO/IME expensive for very low spec, hardly any disk space, hardly any RAM, low grade old CPUs and horribly low bandwidth..even on their £80.oo pcm packs and dedi server deal.looking at the "reseller" offers and their "data center" page..I 'd bet dollars to donuts that they are reselling someone else's white label hosting and do not have their own DC.Hence the low specs for the money on their packs. You say no-one else has mentioned any problems, the thing is, if they can't get to the front page ( let alone any "feedback" form you may have or see your email contact page ) , they couldn't tell you about any problems, , like me they'd be getting a blank page and a "the server is taking to long to reply" message in their browser tab, so, they'd just move on. Could just be a badly configured plug in, or an IP block ( but that would normally 403 ), but their packs are very low spec and if you have image heavy pages, they'll ( host ) likely "throttle" your site, without telling you.
I can't recommend a UK host, last time I had any hosting in the UK it was my own hi-spec box in a colo with T1 speeds over 10 years ago..
Could also be that you are running magento ? ( they offer it ) veeeeeerrrrry slow cart, especially running on low spec machines like they offer, worse if there are a lot of sites on the same box.
Anyway ..nice hinges
You could look into cloudshare ,( I think that ukworkshop.co.uk use them ) they have a free tier, that can help to "buffer" , but your site still has to be reachable behind them for it to work.
/OT