# Inlaid Wooden Hinges



## ruddy (May 9, 2010)

*Getting started *

I had a few of the boxmakers asking for a tutorial blog on the method I have used to make inlaid hinges. This is a first for me so be gentle, pull up a chair and get a coffee. And ask any questions…....
I like to make boxes and have done a few with conventional wooden hinges but I thought they were more suited for rustic designs when virtually added to the box as the last sequence when making the box. I played around with a few designs of flush mounted hinges and came up with the concept of positioning the hinge pin above the lid and base split line and made some hinges that worked that way.
This was the result at that stage.










Trying to come up with something different, I woke up one night with the thought that this style could be inlaid with individual leaves…....

The first box I made was curved and the inlay leaves were very small. It was a steep learning curve and from that experience I made the document box. In between I made a prototype which is shown below. You can see how the prototype works and how it opens to about 95 degrees.




























This blog is going to try and make another prototype hinge. Bear in mind that this is really the 4th time I have done this, I am sure there will be many improvements that can be made to the process.Any bloopers we all get to see….
1. *Marking out the hinges.*The first picture is a piece of scrap pine and I have marked in red where the split line will be. The split line is as wide as the saw kerf. I have never made a larger hinge before so I am going to make the left hand side hinge the same as the one on the document box and the right hand side hinge inlays will be 8mm. I am not sure what the final result will be. The hinge on the left will be made with 4.5mm leaves and the pitch therefore will be 9 mm between leaves. The right hand side will be 8 mm leaves at 16 mm pitch and because of the design freedom with this method I have staggered the leaf lengths. The hinge layout has taken into account the loss that will occur from the saw kerf.









2. *Left hand hinge only.* The first step is to drill the holes at the end of each leaf. These holes are 6mm dia and they are there because they really simplify the later assembly. They are drilled 10 mm deep . It will become clearer when the hinges are glued up.
I have a very old small milling machine I use to do this part of the work.










3. *Left hand hinge only.* This step pockets the hinge layout. I use a 4.5mm dia cutter and the trenches are exactly 10 mm deep. This is important as it becomes the reference surface for later assembly. The pocket area where the upper and lower leaves will overlap will finish up at about 9 mm at this stage which includes the saw kerf.










4.*Here the right hand hinge is shown.* I chose not to predrill the end holes as I want to see how it looks with just radiused ends. Again this hinge pocket is exactly 10 mm deep and you can see the varying lengths of the leaves.










5. *Making the leaves.* I chose some teak as the material for the leaves. I believe you need some close grained hardwood for the inlays.
The board I started with was about 18mm thick and made strips that were 11 mm wide x 4.3 to 4.4 mm thick. You need an easy slide fit when the leaves are placed in the trenches. Not sloppy but also not too tight as when you glue later, it must slip in. I cut a series of leaves that would allow me to get two leaves from each piece. This makes it much easier to handle than individual leave. At this stage I squared up both ends of the pieces on the disc sander, perfectly square. To be on the safe side I made a few extras…...Also note that at htis stage I marked one edge with a red pencil. This face will become the reference face when drilling the hinge pin hole and when assembling.










6. *Splitting the box* If this was a box, this is the point where you would cut the lid from the base. At this stage making a box, the top and the bottom , the mitres and any splines would all be done at this stage. On the prototype, it was just a matter of ripping it in the correct place (red line) on the saw.










regards from Sydney

to be continued


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## grizzman (May 10, 2009)

ruddy said:


> *Getting started *
> 
> I had a few of the boxmakers asking for a tutorial blog on the method I have used to make inlaid hinges. This is a first for me so be gentle, pull up a chair and get a coffee. And ask any questions…....
> I like to make boxes and have done a few with conventional wooden hinges but I thought they were more suited for rustic designs when virtually added to the box as the last sequence when making the box. I played around with a few designs of flush mounted hinges and came up with the concept of positioning the hinge pin above the lid and base split line and made some hinges that worked that way.
> ...


big applause, thank you and im following this , and ill get this down, this is great…grizz..thank you ruddy


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## Kentuk55 (Sep 21, 2010)

ruddy said:


> *Getting started *
> 
> I had a few of the boxmakers asking for a tutorial blog on the method I have used to make inlaid hinges. This is a first for me so be gentle, pull up a chair and get a coffee. And ask any questions…....
> I like to make boxes and have done a few with conventional wooden hinges but I thought they were more suited for rustic designs when virtually added to the box as the last sequence when making the box. I played around with a few designs of flush mounted hinges and came up with the concept of positioning the hinge pin above the lid and base split line and made some hinges that worked that way.
> ...


Wow! I'm clapping also


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## gfadvm (Jan 13, 2011)

ruddy said:


> *Getting started *
> 
> I had a few of the boxmakers asking for a tutorial blog on the method I have used to make inlaid hinges. This is a first for me so be gentle, pull up a chair and get a coffee. And ask any questions…....
> I like to make boxes and have done a few with conventional wooden hinges but I thought they were more suited for rustic designs when virtually added to the box as the last sequence when making the box. I played around with a few designs of flush mounted hinges and came up with the concept of positioning the hinge pin above the lid and base split line and made some hinges that worked that way.
> ...


This is too cool! I'm off to the next installment.


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## abie (Jan 28, 2008)

ruddy said:


> *Getting started *
> 
> I had a few of the boxmakers asking for a tutorial blog on the method I have used to make inlaid hinges. This is a first for me so be gentle, pull up a chair and get a coffee. And ask any questions…....
> I like to make boxes and have done a few with conventional wooden hinges but I thought they were more suited for rustic designs when virtually added to the box as the last sequence when making the box. I played around with a few designs of flush mounted hinges and came up with the concept of positioning the hinge pin above the lid and base split line and made some hinges that worked that way.
> ...


Thanks…
I've just used this method on my latest box with the splines…
hope to try this method on my nest hinge project
again TNX


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## ruddy (May 9, 2010)

*Making the inlays.*

Ok…..This will mainly deal with making the inlays

1. *A drilling jig*
It is very important that when drilling the holes in the inlays all holes are in the same exact position.
The hinge pin I use is made from 3/32 dia brass rod. I manage to get it from a good hobby shop that sells RC model cars helicopters etc.
From this point on, everything relies on going back to the reference face on the hinge leaves and also the hinge pockets. The hinge pins need a 3/32 dia hole drilled 6 mm from the pocket face and 3.5 mm from the squared end of the leaf. Because the right hand hinge is 8 mm wide I started the jig using some pieces of 9mm thick MDF.
(Medium Density Fibreboard.) I also used a small scrap of 10 mm thick aluminium for the top hole guide. I drilled one hole 3/32 dia as shown in the picture and inserted a small piece of the brass rod. Using the correct drill bit as a spacer I glued the back piece so the distance to the centre of the pin was 6mm. I then glued the small end piece in place using a smaller drill.

























I cut the aluminium to size, removed the pin, screwed the aluminium plate to the MDF turned it over and drilled through the hole in the aluminium plate. This is the final jig.










6. *Drilling the inlays for the left hand side only.*
This is why I made the inlays long enough to get two from each as you have to hold them against both the back face and end face when drilling. All holes referenced to the red face. Because we drilled the 6mm holes at the end of each trench it now means that the length of the inlays can be approximate. in this case about 25 mm long was enough to ensure one end was partly over the hole. I cut them to length with a Japanese saw.

















7. *Hinge pins*
Cut the hinge pins for the hinges about 25mm longer than what is required. the fit of the hinge pin on the leaves should be a neat slide fit. This picture shows the base hinge inlays and the pin.








8. *Right Hand Side Inlays*
I had intended to make all the Right hand side inlays from teak but at this point I thought it worthwhile to see what would happen if I used acrylic from a pen blank. Now, half the hinge is going to be made from a turquoise faux "Motherof Pearl acrylic and the other half teak This is purely so Ï can get an idea of what the inlay could look like…
These Right hand side inlays need to be rounded on one end to match the trench. This then adds the difficulty that the distance from the rounded edge to the hinge pin hole becomes important. With the Left hand side inlays, none of this matters. Again because they were made long, it was easier to round both ends of the inlay. 









The inlays were fitted in the trenches and then a mark was scribed where they should be cut. I overcut the length slightly and then sanded them to the correct length." 









9. *Drilling Right hand side inlays.*
When these were all at the correct length they were all drilled with the 3/32 hole and dry assembled to make sure the fit was relatively easy into the pockets. at this stage you can hand sand the inlays to final thickness size if necessary. Again, the hinge pin was made about 25 mm longer than required.
10. *Base clearance groove.*
The base needs a clearance groove the full length of the base. The groove allows the lid to swing open and prevents binding.
This must be done before gluing any inlays in place. In this instance I marked the face with red pencil so I could clearly see how deep and where the edge of the groove came in relation to the back edge.
I used a 10 mm ball nose cutter.










The next post will be about glueing the inlays in position. maybe tomorrow.

regards from Sydney

.


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## JR45 (Jan 26, 2012)

ruddy said:


> *Making the inlays.*
> 
> Ok…..This will mainly deal with making the inlays
> 
> ...


This is excellent tuition. Couldn't ask for a better explanation. Thanks
Jim


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## grizzman (May 10, 2009)

ruddy said:


> *Making the inlays.*
> 
> Ok…..This will mainly deal with making the inlays
> 
> ...


what a great tutorial , thank you so much ruddy, this will be great..


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## majeagle1 (Oct 29, 2008)

ruddy said:


> *Making the inlays.*
> 
> Ok…..This will mainly deal with making the inlays
> 
> ...


Thanks for taking the time to do this Ruddy…... both are fantastic blogs already, looking forward to the rest of the "training". Very descriptive and easy to follow along, thanks again…..all the photos are a super +++


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## gfadvm (Jan 13, 2011)

ruddy said:


> *Making the inlays.*
> 
> Ok…..This will mainly deal with making the inlays
> 
> ...


These are pretty complicated but I'm trying my best to keep up (not a metric thinker!)


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## ruddy (May 9, 2010)

*Glueing the inlays.*

This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
1.* Left hand side base inlays.* 
These inlays are going to be glued into the base. Make sure that they slide in easily before applying glue. Remember which face is the reference!








I use drills of the correct diameter to get the centreline of the hinge pin in the correct position. The centreline should be on the mid point of the over lap which is about 8 mm. In this case I set the centreline at 4 mm.
When I have glued these base inserts previously I used some Titebond3 glue as it has a long set up time.
On this prototype I used Gorilla glue because I had run out of Titebond. I think the set up time for Gorilla is about 4 nanoseconds because I barely had enough time to seat the inserts and get the hinge pin to rest on the drill packers. A lesson learnt.








2. *Right hand side inlays.*
Because there is no hole at the end these inlay trenches the inlays have to be an exact length. Earlier I showed how I marked the length for these inlays. Ít is better to cut then slightly long say 1/64. At this stage you can drill the hinge pin hole. Then using the same packing drills as step 1 above, place the assembly of 4 inlays with the pin into the pocket. You can then see if they are too long because the brass hinge pin will not touch the packing drills. Adjust by reducing the length of the inlays taking some stock off the radiused end.Make sure you do a neater job of this than I have done here.

Because this right hand side has some acrylic inlays, I used a 24 hour two part epoxy to glue the inlays in place.









When the glue has set withdraw the hinge pins using pliers. At this stage you should have two sets of base hinge inlays with a correctly aligned hinge pin hole in each.3.* Hinge pin length.*
Cut the hinge pin to the final length. I make them about 0.5mm shorter than the pocket width.








4. *Shaping the lower inlays*
To allow the lid to swing open, it is necessary to radius the inlays on the base. I have chosen to do that at this point and I simply use a rasp/file to get the shape and it is all done by eye. In the future I think I would do this operation on the sander to each of the inlays prior to glue up.









5.*Lid inlays Left hand side.*
These are cut to approx length as previously. Here I aim to have the end of the inlay going about 1/3 of the way into the 6mm hole at the end of the trench. The actual length is not critical as long as you have some of the inlay encroaching on the 6mm hole.

6.*Right hand side lid inlays.*
This is similar to mounting the lower inlays. Make the inlay as long as the trench and then drill the hinge hole with the jig. At this stage you can thread the inlays onto hinge pin in order and dry assemble the parts. I purposely made these slightly too long and then got the exact fit by reducing the length on the radiused end.









7. *Final glue up.*
Before the final glue up you can slide the lid and base together and make sure that the split line is perfectly even and that the upper inlays all seat home. Because the inlays protrude about 1 mm from the back face you will not be able to fully open the hinge. When you later remove that 1 mm and make the back flush the hinge should fully open.








This picture shows the hinge ready for glue up. I use the 2 part slow setting epoxy for the final glue up as you need plenty of time to get everything in place and the inlays seated home. Absolutely imperative that you do not get any glue in the hinge overlap area. I chose to have the lid side on the bench upside down and then carefully applied the glue to the trench areas only. The big benefit with this system is that everything automatically lines up so getting the fit right between a base and lid on a box is a breeze.









8. *Final clean up.*
After the glue had set, I used an small block plane and an orbital sander to remove the excess inlay stock. 








The next step is to plug the 6 mm holes. To do this I would normally make some teak dowels 1/4 dia and redrill the 6mm holes to 1/4'diameter. Here I made the 1/4" dia plugs from some red acrylic to see how it would look.








The red plugs were set in place with quick set epoxy and then sanded back to be flush.
Here a few pictures of the finished hinges…... 

































You can see the Right Hand side inlays are poorly fitted and no where near as neat as the left hand side. This has all been a bit rushed. 
I would be interested to hear what you think about the acrylic inlays. I think they open up some opprtunities for colour contrast on some boxes.

regards from Sydney


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## lightweightladylefty (Mar 27, 2008)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


ruddy,

That's a very clever design but it looks awfully complicated. The design options seem limitless. Thanks for sharing the idea.

L/W


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## Kentuk55 (Sep 21, 2010)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Wow! Movin right along


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## BritBoxmaker (Feb 1, 2010)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Ruddy, I hadn't picked up on this blog until now. Whilst the method is fairly involved it does allow for great variation in colouring and materials for the inlays. The acrylic inlays are a good idea. I've often found that wood is not the strongest material to make a hinge out of. I wonder if metal inlays, Aluminium or Brass perhaps, might also work well?

Your blog is very clear, well laid out and comprehensive. Its sparked an idea or two in my mind as well. Well done on all fronts. I particularly like the plugging idea, allowing inaccuracies in inlay length to be overcome.


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## grizzman (May 10, 2009)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


thank you so much for this great tutorial ruddy, it was very clear and i agree with martyn on the many points he has brought to the forefront , this opens the doors to some great hinges in the future, again thanks so much for sharing this, great job mate…....grizz


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## vcooney (Jan 4, 2009)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Excellent design thanks for sharing it.


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## YorkshireStewart (Sep 20, 2007)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Thanks, Ruddy, for taking the time to do the exercise, for photographing it so comprehensively, and for sharing it with us. I like these a lot.

Stewart


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## Doe (Aug 26, 2010)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Thanks for time you're spending on this! The words are clear and the pictures-priceless. I really like the acrylic inlays. It would be cool to see what they'd look like with some brass rod as plugs for the round plugged ones . . .

Brilliant work; thanks for sharing!


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## followyourheart (Feb 3, 2010)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


That is very cool!


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## ruddy (May 9, 2010)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Thanks for the comments. I agree with Martyn that wood may not be the strongest material to make hinges but because the inlays are finally trapped in the glued up assembly you would have to break them all at once to destroy the hinge.
They do give great freedom of design and I hope to see what others come up with. Perhaps I should approach Adidas, they certainly sell a lot of boxes and here you could extend their stripes right around the box!!!!


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## GrampaDan (Mar 31, 2012)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Nice work!


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## shipwright (Sep 27, 2010)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Great tutorial, great photos but most of all, great hinges.

Several of us here have a special appreciation of wooden hinges and yours are some of the best I've seen. The aesthetics are very pleasing and I do like hinges are part of the box as opposed to add-ons.

Really nice.


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## gfadvm (Jan 13, 2011)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Thank you very much for taking the time to put this tutorial together. You did a great job with the instructions and pics. I like the acrylic inlays. The left style looks like it leaves a LITTLE more room for error in fit. I'll have to try these as they are some of the nicest wooden hinges I have seen. Thanks again.


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## abie (Jan 28, 2008)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


DITTO to all the above
Very Nice and well laid out and explained.


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## AlexeyKhasyanov (Jul 15, 2010)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Will do.
Thanks for post.


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## punk (Oct 14, 2011)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


real nice i like the varitey and color options


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## MLWilson (Jun 28, 2015)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Wonderfulness and Simplicity, combined. This is on my short list.


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## dclark1943 (May 30, 2012)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Ruddy,
I haven't been around my computer for some time - - so just this morning came onto your post - - Must say my man that you aren't afraid to step out and try new things. This hinge idea is awesome. I really admire your ability to turn vision into reality. Well done !


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## joefitz (Nov 21, 2015)

ruddy said:


> *Glueing the inlays.*
> 
> This is now the home stretch….not long to go.
> 1.* Left hand side base inlays.*
> ...


Very cool. Reminds me of the title design from the movie Psycho.


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