best practice on installing hinges?

[faithie999]

I’m ready to install the hinges for the doors and galley hatch.  I have drilled the holes to be larger and filled them with thickened epoxy.  now I am pondering the best way of aligning the hinges for the best fit.

1). drill holes in all three pieces for each hinge, then try to align them perfectly. maybe gel CA glue would work best if I used this approach–the gel would hold the hinge pieces in place, then align the pieces, then spray accelerant on the CA gel and then epoxy fillets.

2). drill a hole in the top-most of the 3 hinge pieces, then attach all three pieces, apply the epoxy fillets, then after curing, drill holes in the other 2 pieces to align with the hole in the first piece.

3).  don’t drill any holes before installing the 3 pieces, permanently epoxy in place, then drill holes thru all three pieces.

4). other?

what approach is best?

thanks

ken

[mpilone]

I had the same question. I also did the drill and fill method but I haven’t re-drilled the thickened epoxy filled holes yet. Given that the original hinges were already pre-drilled I was thinking that I could just drill them out in the center of the filled hole to get back to how they came originally (but now with the epoxy ring in the hole). I haven’t tried this yet because I wanted to see the tolerances of the hinge tabs and slots first.

I’m definitely curious what others or you end up doing.

-mike

[mpilone]

@faithie999 Which approach did you end up going with? Any advice on the install? I’m most likely going to be installing hinges this weekend and I have them drilled and filled but haven’t reopened the hing pin holes yet.

Thanks,

-mike

[faithie999]

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.

[tbellenger]

Has anyone tried alternative hinges. There are some very nice looking chromed brass options online?

[Author]

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