best way of mortising door hinges

[Howard]

I am going to replace the back door to our garage and wanted to know the best way of cutting the motises for the door hinges, especially if I can use my router. Rockler has a jig for it but it's pretty expensive and I don't plan on using it very much. Normally, I would put the old door on edge along side the new one and mark across the edges and then use a chisel to make the mortise. Anyone have a better idea?

[JimD]

Howard,

For one door, I would do as you describe to get the height and then put the hinge on the unmortised door - put a couple screws in - and mark around it with a utility knife. Then adjust the router set up with a straight cutting bit to the thickness you want for the mortise - typically the hinge thickness. Now route out most of the mortise being careful to stay inside the knife marks. When you get close, the rest may lift out by itself. If not, it only takes a couple minutes to clean up the 1/8 or so left with a chisel. This method is quick and gives you a nice flat bottom mortise with minimal setup.

A more foolproof method if you have a bunch of mortises to do is to make a guide. You need a template guide for the router and a straight bit. I would use a 1/2 bit and a 5/8 template guide. The opening has to be 1/16 bigger all around than the hinge you want to mortise for. If the hinge is 3 inches long and you want to put it 1 1/4 inches into the door, the template guide you make would have an opening 3 1/8 by 1 5/16. 5/8 guides are pretty tall so I typically make the template of 3/4 pine scrap. Once you make one of the templates you clamp it to the door (a right angled fence piece helps a lot with positioning) and cut the mortise. It's quicker but not if you count the time to make the wooden template. The crossover occurs when you have a bunch of mortises to cut. With only a few, I would just route most of the waste and clean up with a chisel.

Jim

[JR]

Porter Cable has this template for routing hinge mortises. I've seen it the BORG for about $20, IIRC.
http://www.porter-cable.com/index.asp?e=3399&p=4275

JR

[drumpriest]

Personally, I just traced out the shape of the mortise, chiselled out the outside of the mortise, and then used a plunge router to cut the bulk of the mortise. Used a chisel to clean out the corners.

The best part of this is that it cost me nothing, as I already owned chisels and routers. ;-)

[Tom Hintz]

Howard,
See the link below for a story on how I make templates for mortising hinges. It works very well for me.

http://www.newwoodworker.com/hingmortising.html

[Handy Al]

I picked up a HingeMortise guide at Lowes for under $10. It's made by Miles craft.

http://www.milescraft.com/router/1291.html

[Tequila]

I tried something different on the last door I hung. Instead of using a plunge cutting bit, I used a spiral cutting bit and an edge guide. It was quicker and much easier to follow the lines without setting up a template. And I didn't need to use a chisel to cleanup visible corners - just areas that would be hidden by the hinge anyway.

[cabinetman]

Cutting your mortices from a match of the door to the frame is a time tested method. When I've replaced doors, I mount the hinges in the jamb. shim the door to where it fits, then mark the door with a knife. Using a very sharp chisel, make the mortice. Hinge action benefits from the mounting depth to be either exactly flush or slightly proud (just a tich).



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