How To Route Interior Door For Hinge Template

Fine Homebuilding Projection Guides

Windows & Doors

Routing Hinge Mortises

Use this technique when y'all end up hanging a new door in an existing frame and take to match the door's hinge locations to the frame'southward.

In virtually cases, carpenters purchase doors that are prehung in their jambs with the hinges already in place. But sometimes, you lot end upward hanging a new door in an existing frame and have to match the door'due south hinge locations to the frame'south, or you notice yourself hanging a door in a new frame on site. The onetime carpenters I learned from would have only chiseled out hinge mortises—and that tin can be fast if you accept only ane door to exercise, and if you have a abrupt chisel. But if you have more than one door to hang, making a router jig doesn't accept long, and the results are as close to perfect as a carpenter needs to get.

Jigs are single purpose—they work with 1 router and one size scrap to cut a specific size mortise. If I find myself on a chore without a jig, I'll sometimes freehand a hinge mortise or iii with the router, cleaning upwards the edges with a chisel (information technology'south easier to cut a mortise to a consistent depth with a router than with a chisel). Just that's a last resort, because making a jig is pretty like shooting fish in a barrel. In this case, the edge of the round router base of operations is guided by three fences on the jig. Other routers with bases that aren't a consistent distance from the bit tin can yet work with a jig, though it's tougher. For example, my Bosch laminate trimmer has a square base with i side closer to the chip than the other iii, and so I need to call back which sides of the base should contact the jig'due south fences. You can also make jigs that work with guide collars or bearing-guided bits, just the approach shown here is simple and works with an cheap directly flake that you probably already have laying effectually. The one hither is a i⁄2-in. directly bit chosen to create a ane⁄4-in. radius at the corners to lucifer the hinges.

The jig base of operations used hither is 1⁄two-in. plywood, but you could also employ iii⁄viii-in. or 3⁄4-in. stock. The base dimensions don't need to be exact, only the length should be about twice the diameter of the router base plus the height of the hinge, and the width approximately that of the router base plus the width of the hinge mortise. The fences are made from scrap 1x stock.

Click theView PDF push below to read the entire commodity, or sentinel the companion video, Shop-Fabricated Hinge Mortising Jig.

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