Cutting Piano Hinge

[Mike Minto]

Guess this is as good an area as any to ask this question - has anyone here experience with cutting a length of piano hinge, to obtain a short length for a project? How is this best done? Any finish/bending issues? Thanks for any help. (I am making a project from a woodworking magazine, and in the sources section, I used the given part number for what I thought was a properly sized hinge, but received one that is way too long to use whole). Thanks, Mike

[Jamie Buxton]

Hacksaw does just fine.

Close the hinge, but only until the leaves are parallel. Observe the gap between them. It probably will be 3/32". Cut a piece of wood that thickness. Put it in the gap, so when you clamp the hinge (in a vise, or with a clamp to the bench) there's something for the clamp to bear on.

Clean up with a file.

[Tony Shea]

like he said, a hacksaw seems to work fine. Just clean it up with some files your done. Take his advise of making the leaves parallel. It is very common piano hinges need to be cut to match your project size.

[Brent Ring]

+1 on hacksaw and file. Works great!

[Mike Minto]

thanks, guys - didn't know this was a common thing - a first for me, will post how it works out.

[Gene Howe]

Just a little trick:
place an advertising refrigerator magnet between the leaves before clamping.
Use it again when drilling the screw holes with a Vix Bit. The leaves are normally too thin for a Vix Bit to properly center the drill bit. The magnet gives you just enough extra thickness. DON'T DRILL THRU THE MAGNET.:D

[Dave Anderson NH]

My only comment would be to make sure you buy a solid brass piano hinge and not one of the brass plated steel ones. There is not much of a difference in price, but the plated one will begin to show wear and can rust at the place where you made the cut. The plating is also usually so thin that scratches on the surface of the hinge go through the plating and after a few months the hinge starts to look really awful.

[Lee Schierer]

Rather than try to find a shim to place between the leaves of the hinge, I place on leaf in the vise so the barrel rests on the top of the vise jaw and the other leaf lays across one jaw. Then I cut the hinge with a hack saw and clean up with a file.

[Jamie Buxton]

Here's a tip when you're mounting piano hinge...

The leaf thickness is thinner than the head of the included #4 screw is tall. This means that if you just drill a pilot hole and then drive the screw home (like you would a normal hinge), the head will hit wood before it tightens up against the leaf. You can attempt to drive it home against the leaf, but that tends to break the small screw. A better approach is to drill the pilot holes, then remove the hinge and countersink the holes slightly, then replace the hinge and drive the screws home.