How many cup hinges per door?

[Bruce Wrenn]

Drilling the cup is easy. With a little thought, you could make a router guide that registers in the cup hole which would allow you to use plunge router and guide bushings to drill dowel holes. It would take a little effort to make the 35MM piece to fit in cup hole. Choices include, but not limited to: router trammel, face plate on lathe, fly cutter on drill press.

[Todd Burch]

Choices include, but not limited to: router trammel, face plate on lathe, fly cutter on drill press.

Bastardized cup hinge epoxied to the jig...

Good idea, but I've never really been a big fan of drilling holes with a router.

Maybe the easy way to go is to get the ~$300 jig, use the 8mm drill, and not use the 5mm euro screws.

However, with the 8mm holes, will that hold as good in MDF? What exactly am I putting in the 8mm holes?

[Stephen Cherry]

I just priced an automatic blum boring machine. $3200+. .

These machines come up used pretty regularly. My target price would be 500 spacebucks.

[Sam Murdoch]

Maybe the easy way to go is to get the ~$300 jig, use the 8mm drill, and not use the 5mm euro screws.

However, with the 8mm holes, will that hold as good in MDF? What exactly am I putting in the 8mm holes?

In spite of the overly cautious posts that I have written above - the Inserta don't really need screws or the dowels. The design with the expanding rubber sleeve and the extruded metal at the 8 mm holes is to keep the hinge square to the door as bored. I have never added screws and have had no issues. Use the number of hinges according to the Blum hinge chart. These are very secure, very easy to use and look great too.

Click on the installation/deactivation info at this link .

http://www.blum.com/au/en/01/20/12/30/index.php

[Todd Burch]

I'm thinking about buying this:

http://www.sommerfeldtools.com/Somme...oductinfo/SHB/

About 1/2 the price of Blum's. Anyone have any experience with Sommerfeld's ez-bore jig? Looks very similar to Blum's.

I now understand how the plastic dowels work: Drill the 35mm and 8mm holes, hammer the cup hinge in, and you can unscrew the hinge from the dowels if needed and the dowels stay in the door.

[Jeff Duncan]

I now understand how the plastic dowels work: Drill the 35mm and 8mm holes, hammer the cup hinge in, and you can unscrew the hinge from the dowels if needed and the dowels stay in the door.

Good, now check out how the Inserta's work and you can avoid both the hammering and leaving the dowels in place when you need to remove the hinges

good luck,
JeffD

[Todd Burch]

Thanks Jeff. Just got back from my supply house. I had the counter dude get a dowel and Inserta hinge for me to look at. The Inserta is nice - super fast to install, for sure! But, almost a dollar more per hinge than the dowel version, so... not nice enough for me this time around! (150 hinges is $150!!) I went with the dowels. And, I just ordered the ez-bore from Sommerfeld - about 1/2 the price of the Blum jig.

Looking forward to getting these door cranked out. Last night, I got the 22 MDF slab doors cut out, and all but 9 of them profiled on 3 edges.

And thanks to everyone else who provided suggestions. I did also order extra hinges since now I know how to read the hinge chart! DOH!!

[Todd Burch]

My Sommerfeld Drilling jig arrived yesterday, and I used it tonight to drill 58 holes in 22 slab MDF doors. It is SLOOOOOWWWWWWW. You have to clean out the packed-in MDF shavings after EVERY use. The pressure required to drill the 35mm holes is significant. The 8mm holes are a no-brainer.

When I first started using it, I drilled the 8mm holes first, then the 35mm. With this approach, I found the "fluffy" MDF shavings were likely to (and did once) cause the 35mm bit to not retract all the way back up into the jig, which causes you to not be able to remove the jig from the door! Not good.

Then I drilled the 35mm hole first, and never had that issue again. I used a 6 inch rule to clear out the shavings after every use. I haven't used it on solid wood yet, but I suspect the procedure will be the same.

In summary, perfectly accurate holes, at a significant time and effort cost.

I would think the jig could be modified to allow for some mechanical advantage on the 35mm hole. I could probably derive a jig for the drill press that would accommodate the jig and allow me to leverage the mechanical advantage of the drill press.

[Sam Murdoch]

Same problem with packing with the Ecodrill. Could use some mods to accept suction. The Sommerfield doesn't drill all the holes at once?
In any event slow but doable. Not a production jig by any stretch.

[Todd Burch]

One hole @ a time.

(Reminds me of the Johnny Cash song... "I built it onnnnnnnnne part at a time..... it was a 49, 50, 51-52,53,54,55,56, 57, 58, 59999999 automobile....")

[Jeff Duncan]

If you get more jobs for doors you'll want to look into a hinge drill/press. Put the door against the stop, push the button, 2 seconds later hit the other end of the door push the button, and done! They're expensive, but they're fast and accurate! Of course I wouldn't spend the money for just one job....but if you have other jobs coming in

Sounds like you have everything under control now so good luck!

JeffD