Woodworking Tip of The Week - Two Tips for Installing Hinges

Installing a door on its hinges can be one of the trickiest parts of building a cabinet. Here are a couple tips I've used in the past to help install a cabinet door with less hassle.

Steel Woodscrews

During the installation process, I often end up putting on and taking off the door a few times. And one added frustration I try to avoid is breaking one of the screws.
So until I'm satisfied with the fit of the door, I only put one screw in each leaf, as shown in the photo. And instead of brass screws, I temporarily substitute steel screws, since they're less likely to break.

Finally, when it's time to add the other screws, I run steel screws in and out of the pilot holes first. This way, the steel screws cut the threads for the brass screws.

Installing Hinges

If a hinge mortise is cut too deep, there may not be enough of a gap between the door and the cabinet. As you can see in the photo at right, a quick fix for this is to add a paper or thin cardboard shim.

A shim also comes in handy if the gap between the door and the cabinet tapers from top to bottom. This time, though, you'll only shim one of the mortises.

Good Woodworking,
Ted Raife

Editor, Woodsmith

Woodworking Tip of The Week - Push Block

At first glance, the push block in the photo at right appears to be rather simple. But don’t let its appearance fool you. The right push block not only makes the work safer, it also improves the quality of your work.
One thing I like about the push block shown in the photo is the “high-mounted” comfortable position of the handle. It keeps your fingers well above and away from the spinning saw blade.
Best of all, you don’t sacrifice any control. The forward sweep of the handle lets you place constant downward pressure on the work-piece for a steady, controlled feed into the saw blade.

As you might expect, the body and cleat are going to get chewed up after you pass them overthe blade a number of times. So this push block is designed with replaceable parts. All you need to do is flip the body or cleat over when you need a new edge or simply replace them with new ones. Then you can quickly attach the handle with a screw and get back to work again.

Have a nice weekend,
Phil Huber

Editor, ShopNotes

Woodworking Tip of The Week - Edge Trimming Panel Supports

Whenever I use plywood to build a project it usually means having to deal with exposed plywood edges that need to be covered. But you’ll find a few challenges to applying edging and making it look great.

Since I want to be sure the edges are completely covered, I like to start with the edging just a hair wider than the thickness of the plywood. Then once the glue dries, the edging can be trimmed flush. I like to use a hand-held router with a flush trim bit to do this. But the challenge is balancing the router on the edge of the plywood to make a clean cut.

To provide stability to the panels while I routed the edges, I used to clamp two panels on edge with 2x4 scraps between them. But accomplishing this always seemed to take more hands than I had to get everything clamped in place. To make the job easier, I made the panel supports shown in the photo at right.

The supports are easy to build and can be made from scrap pieces of stock. I made mine from 3/4″ plywood.

Each support begins with a long base to provide an area to clamp the support to the workbench. Next, glue up two layers of plywood to create a center divider and attach it upright on the base. This separates the two panels to be trimmed and provides a wide surface for clamping the panels securely in position. Then, to hold the plywood panels in place while I attach the clamps, just add a shorter outside support on either side.

The supports are easy to set up and simple use. All you need to do is align the two supports with one another and then clamp them to your workbench. After slipping a panel between the center divider and each outside support, clamp the panels to the divider at each end, as shown in the drawing below.

Both panels are now securely supported, making it easy to trim the edging flush. Just be sure to rout each panel in a clockwise direction to avoid kickback.
Have a nice weekend,
Phil Huber

Editor, ShopNotes