A new wooden hinge form

This article continues with the wooden hinge theme. I made some changes to the simple form I showed earlier. My thanks to Julio, in Spain, for the inspiration to develop a new hinge form. The business part of the hinge is now rounded. What follows is how I went about doing this.

I used walnut boards for the new hinges; in fact, I used the remains of the the boards I used for the first set of wooden hinges. This time I simply used a 3/16″ roundover bit on both edges at the router table:

After rounding over both edges on each board, I got a stepped edge along the entire length of the boards. But after a minute or two with sand paper, the step disappeared and I had a nice, smooth round edge:

The rounded edges of the boards went under the finger assembly of the F3 finger joint template. I cut the fingers and sockets on the Leigh D4R Pro jig — the results were great. I had enough material to make new hinges for 3 boxes:

I outlined a shape on the edges of two of the new hinges, and then spent a little time at the spindle sander removing wood to that outline. Soon I had the following form:

Thanks again, Julio!

Note 1: I was worried about completely rounding over both sides of the hinges; depending on the design of the hinge, a complete roundover may allow the lid to open fully; the lid may even touch the surface where the box is resting. In this case, the lid will open a bit beyond 270°. I will be able to determine the exact angle once I secure the hinges to the lid and the box; I will report on this, as it is an important issue. Normally we want the lid to open to 95°, and (almost) never beyond 110°.

Note 2: I will continue to refine the form, by creating new curves at the distal ends. This was a great suggestion from an online friend.

— Al Navas