Reply To: best practice on installing hinges?

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#1161
faithie999
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First I put the supplied heat shrink on all the hinge machine screws (remember to put a washer on the bolt before putting the heat shrink on), then eyeballed the right size drill bit which I determined to be 13/64. I used a center punch to dent the center of the original hole then drilled the new hole.  I used a couple of clamps and wide masking tape to hold the door in the proper location.  Then I opened up the mortises in both the shell and the doors and dry-fit the assembled 3-piece hinge assembly.  I used a 1/4″ chisel to gently enlarge the mortises until the hinges fit in just the right location.  Then I followed the instructions to glue them in place with thickened epoxy.  When I nestled then into exactly the right spot I used a couple of drops of CA to hold all 3 hinge pieces firmly in place overnight.  Then I applied the fillets.  I used the same method for the galley hatch hinges.  As the manual suggests, I let the fillets cure for about an hour then wet my rubber glove index finger with alcohol and nicely smoothed the fillets.  Came out very nice.

Several of the mortises were filled with thickened epoxy from previous steps.  I used a 3/8″ Forster bit to remove most of the material, then used a 1/4″ chisel to clean up the corners.  I used a flat file to clean up the inside corners of the tenons on the hinge pieces, which due to fiberglass and epoxy were no longer at 90 degrees.