Sunday 18 October 2020

Laser Cut Hinges


I've been making this little plinth/stand that's going to have my Super Adept Lathe mounted on it for a while and last week I took the front of the plinth to the Ffiws makerspace and laser cut the two holes. The idea originally was that it would just be a little cubby hole to store odd bits and bobs. However the kerf is so fine with the laser that I couldn't help but think it might be nice to keep the cutouts as doors. So it got me thinking about hinges! I'd seen this method ages ago on something at a maker event but had never tried the principle. 

Above you can see the component parts, all cut from 3.125mm ply the 6mm diameter hole and plug already have a nice clearance due to the laser cut. The idea is that you carefully glue the little circular plug to the solid pieces taking care not to het any glue in the mechanism.
The idea is contingent on making the holed section/arm slightly thinner than the plug, so some nice even sanding (around 12 strokes per side) gives enough clearance for the hinge to be solid enough yet still move. 


Finally gluing the final solid piece to the hinge, and again you have to take care to not get any glue into the rotating section. I think an improvement would be to create some kind of jig so that you  can set these up with longer drying wood glues which would make them stronger, but they seem ok for now with super glue. 


Glued up the cubby door side before affixing them to the main assembly. 

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