Installing Hardware and Hinges

Derek Jones shares a few tips to make sure your hinges are always sitting comfortably

Photographs by Derek Jones/GMC Publications

Lurking away behind or beneath every example of metamorphic furniture there’s a mechanism that enables the piece to transform from one useful item to another. Invariably that mechanism is a piece of metal hardware, sometimes beautifully crafted, sometimes not. Regardless of how well made these components are, they nearly always fail and usually long before the rest of the piece is ready to give up. It’s fair to say then that for this reason I’m not a fan of gadgets, gizmos and unnecessary mechanical paraphernalia when it comes to furniture.

Let me explain. First of all, I’m not averse to metal components being used in furniture per se; hinges, locks and handles are and have been for centuries, if you’ll excuse the pun, part of the furniture of furniture. Part of the problem, and it’s the same with objects old and new, is that they require a certain amount of maintenance to keep them in tip- top condition. Examine almost any piece of period furniture closely and you will notice that generally they haven’t received this level of care. Just as your car or bike needs regular attention to keep it on the road, so does hardware.

Of course that’s easy for us to say, we’re hardware nerds and love tinkering around with mechanisms to get them running sweetly but the poor owners, we should call them custodians really, aren’t so afflicted.

In this article I’m going to offer a few tips that I hope will make sure your hardware is still operating smoothly long after you’ve installed it and perhaps even breathed your last. Before that though, I’ve got a few suggestions that will help make sure you get the parts in the right place in the first place. Let’s start with perhaps the crudest hinge of all, the strap hinge.

Strap hinges

Hinges take on many forms, the most basic being used on old coffers made from bent nails and hooks. This crude mechanism appears on the earliest chests or coffers from the 12th century but is by no means exclusive to that period. Original examples are few and far between although you can often find traces of where they have been used; a series of rusty holes usually accompanied by splits in the back or lid being a good indication. Although unsightly at first, they do hint towards the item being of a certain age.

The next incarnation of metal hinge came in the form of a strap hinge with sections of each leaf bent around a pin to form what we refer to as either the spine or knuckle. Early examples don’t exactly scream precision and finesse, at least by today’s standards, and for some reason despite the capability to do otherwise, they are being churned out by the thousand with a similar sloppy fit. Modern mass-produced hinges in this style however, lack the charm of genuine blacksmith-made ones, which I strongly advise you to consider next time you need them.

I use two makes of strap hinge when I’m building six-board chests. They are both made from parts stamped from a sheet of mild steel. The material ranges from just under 2mm thick to 2.5mm. The thicker ones aren’t a very pretty pattern but are more robust and always better made to the point that they are almost too neat. The other features a penny round at the tip of both the long and short leaf and feel somewhat flimsy in comparison, but as they are less refined their appearance feels more authentic. When sourcing cranked hinges, aside from the overall length of the leaves, there is the amount of crank on the lower leaf to consider. This is the distance from the fold to the knuckle.

A typical chest will have carcass sides made from material somewhere in the region of 17mm to 22mm thick (we can call it ¾in) if you start out with 25mm (1in) thick boards. The crank therefore needs to match this dimension for the hinge to work. Guess what? The thicker and more robust of my two preferred hinges has a shorter crank while the thinner and less robust version has a larger crank and is suited for thicker stock. Ideally it would be the other way round but there’s a simple fix for both.

Beefing up the back

For the thicker gauge hinges it’s just a case of letting in the short leaf into the back of the carcass to allow the spine of the hinge to project sufficiently beyond the back of the chest. On the top of the crank you will find a hole, which needs to be located a safe distance from the edges of the board to avoid the screw or nail from splitting the board when driven home. For hinges with a wide crank you can add a strip of material along the back of the inside of the chest. Decorate the lower edge with a chamfer or bead and it doesn’t look out of place.

Don’t blow it. By driving a series of fixings into a piece of wood in a straight line you are effectively creating a fault line in the timber. Some hinges, especially those used on heavy doors, have their fixing holes offset for this very reason, but in the case of furniture where the hardware is generally smaller, you might be better off with an extra hinge than using longer screws.

Fitting like a glove

There are two good reasons why recessed hardware needs to be installed without gaps around the edge and with the screws pulling in one direction. Obviously it will look much neater but what’s not always considered is that it will also perform a lot better. It pays to seek out the best quality items you can afford, and for hinges that generally means drawn or milled versions and not ones that have been stamped out of a sheet of material. Good qualities to look for in a hinge are crisp, straight edges and countersunk holes that are drilled and not pressed.

If you’re not familiar with these details there’s a great way to tell if your hardware is up to the job. Open the hinge and lay it onto a reliably flat surface such as the side of a straight edge or a machine table. If the leaves lie flat all the way round without gaps then you have the makings of a good set of hinges. If they don’t you can try making a few adjustments, but ultimately you’re still dealing with second-rate goods and should prepare for the worst. In the same way we like to bring wooden components together without any hidden stresses, hardware benefits from the same degree of attention. Hinge leaves that are being forced to lie flat in a recess mortise will transfer stress to the spine and pin and perhaps even cause your lid or door to be pulled out of alignment. In addition, if the screws are fighting to bend the hardware into shape they’re working overtime to hold your cabinet together.

You can lay out the immediate boundary for your hinges by capturing the width with a small indent made with a marking knife followed by a square and then a marking gauge to set the depth and projection. An easier way and seemingly more obvious method is to lay the hardware on the surface and use a knife to mark directly off the side of the hinge.

However, beware the seemingly obvious – cutting out to these lines will result in a loose-fitting hinge. Instead, mark one end then move the hinge slightly to sit directly on top of the knife line and then mark the other end. What you’re doing is compensating for the thickness of your marking knife x two, which could be as much as a whole millimetre or a hair’s breadth depending on your style of knife and angle of the bevel it has. A scalpel will require very little offset if you angle the blade while making your mark while my flat-sided Hock blade, for example, requires a bit more. I find this method a lot quicker to set the first leaf of the hinge and quite often find the recess is smaller than the leaf making it easy to sneak up to a precise fit with a sharp chisel.

Awkward grain

You’ll need to excavate a good flat seat for your hinge leaf to sit on, and on awkward grain that can be tricky when using hand tools. Breaking up the area into small sections will stop your chisel from following the direction of the grain. Just make a series of closely bunched incisions with your chisel. When it comes to paring away the waste the small chips will break off quite easily. Use this technique if you find a knot in your way.

Location, location, location?

When it comes to positioning hinges I very rarely know the exact measurement from the top and bottom of the door preferring instead to take a lead from the joinery. The top of the top hinge will line up with the bottom edge of the top stile and the bottom hinge similarly placed in relation to the bottom rail. If these dimensions are not equal it’s not a problem as the same logic has been applied. For doors that don’t have stiles and rails I’ll invariably use the wide part of the nearest square I have to hand and be done with it, unless there are some other features such as cross banding or inlay that suggest otherwise. A multisquare is also handy to have on standby. If this sounds a bit vague it’s meant to be; it’s incredibly easy to get overwhelmed by the numbers when all that’s required is a standard measurement.

Polishing up your act

Most hardware catalogues, online or otherwise, have an eye-watering number of options to choose from, which is bizarre considering how often you can’t find the part you need in the size you want and in the finish you like. There are however some simple steps you can take to deal with at least two of these inconveniences. First, consider your hardware needs before you make the furniture. This will ensure you have enough meat in the wooden components to contain things like a mortise lock and enough thickness in the material to take a suitable hinge. Don’t be too worried about the finishes on offer. The antique finish will most likely be a disappointment and not that difficult to achieve in-house.

Suppliers often refer to unfinished brassware as self-colour, the techniques of which we’ll be looking at next month. Somewhat time consuming but well worth the effort is to polish your own hardware. Start with a fine file to remove any machine marks and level off the knuckles along the spine. Occasionally even good quality hinges need a little extra work to square off the back edge of the leaves.

Place a thin piece of card between the leaves and put the hinge in a vice to avoid creating a steep bevel on the edge. A slight bevel will work in your favour as long as it goes from the face side of the leaf to the back. With the filing done, work through your finer grits of abrasive and finish with some metal polish and a piece of leather. When you’ve done a few, those boutique hinges at three times the price suddenly feel like quite good value. Here’s a tip – they are.

Screw you. I have found no exception to this rule – immediately discard the screws that come with any pre-packed hardware especially those that look like brass. Don’t question me on this and don’t even try to make them work. They won’t. If you take just one piece of advice from this article please make it this so I can say that my work here is done. There is no substitute for and perhaps no greater pleasure known to man, than a well stocked screw cupboard.

Dead centre

So that all your hard work doesn’t go to waste, the final stage in installing your hinges, or any hardware come to think of it, will be making sure the screws are centred within their countersinks. This should be easy but once again it’s amazing how quickly things can go wrong if you’re not paying attention. So here’s a couple of tips that are easy to do and don’t require you to pay that much attention!

Forget about eyeballing the centre and marking it with a bradawl, it’s too hit and miss for my liking in anything other than the finest grain. Soft woods, southern yellow pine for example, will almost certainly guide your drill bit towards the path of least resistance and that’s invariably off centre. Reject your standard twist drills for the same reason. Their tip is not round and not nearly pointy enough to make a clean hole on the first couple of revolutions. Most multi-purpose drills are ground with either a 118° or 135° angle tip for metal and hard materials like laminate and plastics.

Wood prefers a lower angle, somewhere around 90°. If freehand drilling is your only option, I put lip and spur bits in the same category as the bradawl, risky below 5mm dia. but more reliable as you go bigger. My secret weapon when it comes to putting holes in the right places is a centre drill. Yes, it’s that simple. Centre drills for wood have the drill bit contained within a collar that’s designed to engage with the countersink before you apply any pressure and therefore drill your hole in the centre. You are limited in size, 3.5mm being the most common but you only need to plunge a couple of millimetres to establish centre and you’re good to follow on with the right size for your screw. If you’re wondering how woodworkers managed without these fancy gadgets you need look no further than the gimlet (see F&C 265 for the Collector’s Guide to these remarkable tools).

Success from using any of the above techniques depends on your ability to drill a straight hole. More screws have lost their heads being forced to centre in the countersink while their shank is veering off at 3°. If you have access to a drill press you can a make jig to fit your mortise with the holes in place and use the thickness to hold your drill upright. If you have a lot of hinges to set you’ll need to check that the holes on each leaf are the same on both sides and on every hinge. The best way to ensure consistency is to buy a box of hinges.

An alternative to the centre drill is the centre punch. This example is available from Dictum for €45.90. A sharp hardened steel tip is contained within a sleeve designed to centre on the countersink. A hammer blow to the sprung loaded strike button will deliver the point into the wood where you need it.

Last turn of the screw

The final act of installing hardware is screwing the parts into place and once again that sounds like it should be quite straightforward, and it is as long as you’ve followed the steps above. It’s generally regarded that the core of the screw will determine the size of hole you need to drill, the core being that part between threads. It’s certainly a good indication but you will need to consider the length of the screw and the material you are screwing into. Hard wood will offer more resistance than soft wood as will a long screw. It’s never wise to make sweeping statements but steel screws are generally stronger than brass ones, providing of course they are steel. It’s a fact that you will only discover how strong your screw is when you’ve snapped the head off it.

There’s really no substitute for testing the waters first and perhaps considering two bores; a narrow drill at full depth and a wider one to accommodate the full width and depth of the shank. Running a steel screw into the hole first will help to cut a thread before a brass one goes in, if brass is your preferred option. It’s worth noting that more period brass hardware is held in place with steel screws rather than brass – brass being reserved for either exterior work or hardware that’s on display and sometimes (in latter years) into oak. Candle wax (white petroleum and not beeswax) is an excellent lubricant that will not only help you put the screw in but will also help your successor in a hundred years’ time, take it out.

Further reading