Cutting Hinge Slots In Door
Next, cut the slots in the wings for the hinges. You can do this with a router table or a hand held router. I did it with a hand held router, so that’s what I’ll try to explain here. I’m sure there are other (better) ways to do it, but this is how I did it. Although the hinges are 13mm wide, you can use a 12.7mm (1/2 inch) tool to cut the slot, and the hinge will sit snugly in it.
This bit is called a 'hinge mortising bit'. but it looks to be essentially like other top bearing router bit.The one difference between this and other top-bearing router bits is that the maximum depth of cut on this one is fairly shallow, which is what you'd want if you're routing into the edge of the door to recess the hinge. When I purchased a multi tool a few months ago one of the things in mind was to see if it would serve cutting hinge slots. With a current build in progress, it was time to see. First - I took the flush cutting head that was 1.25 inches wide and having a straight saw blade edge to the grinder and ground it down on each side to leave a cutting. A homeowner can cut a hinge mortise for door hinges with a few basic hand tools and a bit of patience. 1 Mark the spot on the door edge where the hinges will be located. A Dremel helps you to cut out door hinge. Conversely, to uninstall a door hinge, you can use a Dremel as well: STEP 1. You need to buy new door-hinges that fit the old ones in edge shape as well as size. To make sure, you can measure again current joints whether they are in the right locations or not. When replacing the hinge, you do.
There are three parts to the slot: Long shallow slot, short deep slot, screw holes. The dimensions are as follows:
First, set up your router by attaching a piece of wood 10mm from the centre. This will act as a guide, keeping the tool in the centre of the edge of the wing. Alternatively, your router might have an adjustable fence which you can use instead (as long as the width of the fence is less than the width of the router’s circular base.
Cutting Hinge Slots In Doors
Attach wood piece 10mm from router centre
Next, we’re going to mark up the wood, but to do that, we need to know where to put the marks. Measure the dimension A, from the edge of the tool to the edge of the circular base.
Measure the dimension A, from the edge of the tool to the edge of the circular base
Mark the edges of the wings where you want to put the four hinges. Space them fairly equally. Make up two right angled fences, as shown below, and clamp them a distance of A from each mark.
Now for the tricky part. The problem here is that the router tool cannot drill straight down into the wood, so the only way to cut this is to travel down diagonally. Set the router’s end stop to 5mm cut depth, then bring the tool back up above its circular base. Put the router on top of the wood, pushing the guide up against it. The tool shouldn’t be touching the wood at this point. Start the motor, and as you let the tool down, slide the router left and right (always making sure to push the guide up against the wood). Cut diagonally down left and right until you’ve cut out a nice 5mm deep slot.
Routing the hinge slots
Cutting Hinge Slots In Door
Put one of the hinges into the slot upside down to check that the slot is deep enough. The flange should be perfectly flush with the surface, or just a tiny bit below. If it’s not deep enough, or too deep, adjust the router’s cut depth. Then flip the router around, and cut the same slot in the other piece of wood.
Next cut the 18.5mm deep, 20mm wide slot. Move the fences inwards by 12mm, and repeat the above steps to cut the slots. Then move on and cut the three other hinge slots.
Four pairs of perfectly matching hinge slots
The last thing to do is drill the holes for the screws. You can do this using the hinges themselves as a guide.