Slant top desk - hinge type for lid?

[Justin Green]

The slant top desk is coming along. Since it will be painted, I made the top from poplar, and it ended up being a bit heavy for butt hinges (I tried them, mortised them in and attached, but the proposition felt extremely iffy). Are strap hinges the only option left here for hinging the top and keeping with hardware available 100 years ago? Even with three butt hinges in place, the top felt like it would eventually strip out the screws or split the wood. This project is mostly neander except for sizing the stock. All mortise and tenons and dovetails were by hand and a little planing here and there.

Plus I thought I'd show off some additional pics. My blind dovetails are improving, and I had no false starts on either drawer this time.

Although.... both drawers had to be tweaked to a slight trapezoid shape because my carcass did not end up assembling perfectly square . I had to deepen the pins in the dovetail joints in the back of the drawers more than I would have liked to get them to fit. Lesson learned.

Also, sorry if this isn't quite a neander question.

[Daniel Rode]

I can't really answer your question about hinges but I wanted to chime in on the project. It looks terrific!

[Justin Green]

Thanks! Learning lots putting this one together.

[Karl Andersson]

Justin, by far the majority I've seen like this used mortised butt hinges, and only two at that (for the width or your top). Strap hinges would be an option with a few historical references, but usually only those that were created to look "antique/ medieval" during a Gothic revival or other whimsical design period if you're looking at turn-of-the century techniques. If you're getting feedback that the hinges or screws won't stay put, maybe you need bigger and longer screws? Might have to bore and countersink the hinges for larger screws or switch to steel instead of brass hinges if that's what you used. If you use strap hinges, you'll be limited to screws shorter than the thickness of your lid (3/4"?), so they might not be an improvement in holding power, and once you commit to drilling holes in the face of the lid, you're stuck with that approach. Most lids like this would also have stays (chains, likely) to keep the lid from going all the way back and levering against the hinges.

Looks great, by the way!

[Christopher Charles]

Looks great to me! Not an expert by a long shot, but have a 120 year old piano with a piano hinge over the key cover, 'piano hinge' were around 100 years ago. agree that 2-3 butt hinges should be strong enough unless i'm missing something.

Curious, what will the drawers be used for?

Cheers,
C

[Richard Hutchings]

I'd go with the piano hinge as well. If it was oak or some other hard wood, I think the butt hinges would be fine.

[Brian Holcombe]

Looks great, coming along very nicely.

I know you are not soliciting advice with regard to the dovetails, but I have a couple of thoughts;

If you put a feeler gauge into the gaps and it goes all the way to the bottom than the fit is loose. If it does not, then you are out of 90 and going to 90 or undercutting may improve the fitup.

[Justin Green]

Thank you gentlemen very much for the input on the hinges! One thing about it being a slant top desk, and perhaps I did not think carefully enough, is that I beveled the edge of the lid so it would flush with the top board. In thinking through this now, I should have angled the edge of the top board, because longer screws will shoot through the lid now! Although angling the edge of the lid will mean long screws risk protruding out the top. Or I could bevel both...

The drawers are actually for jewelry. It seems a little untoward for a slant top desk to double as a jewelry box, and even now, there's something not quite right about this project, but my wife is excited about it. The closely separated dividers in the top drawer are individually removable so as to allow for creating custom spacing. They will have linen covered pads (velvet in this project seemed downright creepy) put in the spaces to store the jewelry. They will be removable and not permanently affixed in the event this is not always jewelry storage.

I'm definitely considering a chain or prop for supporting the lid open.

Brian,
I definitely welcome any and all unsolicited feedback that you guys are generous enough to provide! I need a set of feeler guages. On the first (top) drawer, the angles were passable, although I did not gauge the depth of the tails correctly and ended up with a fairly uniform gap between the end of the tails and the back of the blind dovetail. I made this mistake on both sides of the top drawer's blind dovetails. I didn't see a ready way to lengthen the tails without creating a gap somewhere else, so left it as a reminder to do better next time, lol.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thank you gentlemen very much for the input on the hinges! One thing about it being a slant top desk, and perhaps I did not think carefully enough, is that I beveled the edge of the lid so it would flush with the top board. In thinking through this now, I should have angled the edge of the top board, because longer screws will shoot through the lid now! Although angling the edge of the lid will mean long screws risk protruding out the top. Or I could bevel both...

The drawers are actually for jewelry. It seems a little untoward for a slant top desk to double as a jewelry box, and even now, there's something not quite right about this project, but my wife is excited about it. The closely separated dividers in the top drawer are individually removable so as to allow for creating custom spacing. They will have linen covered pads (velvet in this project seemed downright creepy) put in the spaces to store the jewelry. They will be removable and not permanently affixed in the event this is not always jewelry storage.

I'm definitely considering a chain or prop for supporting the lid open.

Brian,
I definitely welcome any and all unsolicited feedback that you guys are generous enough to provide! I need a set of feeler guages. On the first (top) drawer, the angles were passable, although I did not gauge the depth of the tails correctly and ended up with a fairly uniform gap between the end of the tails and the back of the blind dovetail. I made this mistake on both sides of the top drawer's blind dovetails. I didn't see a ready way to lengthen the tails without creating a gap somewhere else, so left it as a reminder to do better next time, lol.

Anytime!

It's not really required for cutting them, but it will help you aide in trouble shooting. In a pinch you could use a slice of veneer or a heavy shaving. In fact on occasions where I blunder I will fit a slice of veneer into the joint, going the same direction as the grain that is missing, it looks alot nicer than wood putty or a really heavy glue line.

[Justin Green]

Thanks, Brian!

Here are a few alternative hinging solutions that I found to solve the angle issue.

[Karl Andersson]

Interesting that both the ones you show are repairs - such a common desk style, there must be a solution since not all of the antiques are broken.

Without time to go look in shops and see what their hinges look like, what would allow you to use longer screws is if you used a plain butt hinge (like in your first picture), but mortised, not surface-mounted (so the two leaf surfaces you see here would touch at the far edges when the desk is closed). The leaves would be able to angle when fully closed (apart from each other the width of the hinge pin at top and touching at bottom), maybe matching the angle of the joint. It might look odd with a plain hinge; if you can find a butt hinge with one plain leaf and one half-swaged, you could put the half-swaged leaf facing the lid and it would look more "normal' from the front of the desk, with a crease under the pin. You could do the same, carefully, with a small metal vise and a plain hinge.

[Richard Hutchings]

How about an extra piece of wood glued under the hinges to allow for longer screws. That could be made to look very nice I think.

[Daniel Rode]

I've been giving this some thought and I'm not convinced that a this is too heavy for a pair of quality butt hinges. I'd cut them into the edges and use somewhat longer screws (maybe 1" tops). I might also add a stop to the front underside to provide some extra support when the top is closed but it's probably not needed.

What led you to the conclusion that the top was too heavy?

[Richard Line]

I suspect the biggest problem for long term survival is the softness of popular. If you want to use butt hinges, then I would place hardwood dowels where the screws will go. Of course glue the dowels in place, then run the screws into the dowels. The hardwood dowels will provide the local strength to hold the screws and the dowels will spread the stress into the popular over a wider area.

Another hinge option would be the hinges that look like a butt hinge from the top, but fold under the wood so the screws go in from the bottom and thus would be in sheer rather than tension.

[Justin Green]

I've been giving this some thought and I'm not convinced that a this is too heavy for a pair of quality butt hinges. I'd cut them into the edges and use somewhat longer screws (maybe 1" tops). I might also add a stop to the front underside to provide some extra support when the top is closed but it's probably not needed.

What led you to the conclusion that the top was too heavy?

I mortised in 3 butt hinges and screwed them all down. Quality from the Borg was lacking, as one of the screws' heads twisted off while tightening. They were rather short screws to begin with. However, I noticed that one of the screws had raised some grain on the lid, meaning that it went in too far. I then looked at the amount of wood that would be above the screw in the lid. at 3/4" thick, there is not a lot of meat above the screw, and my gut is that eventually the hinges will fail, tearing out the top of the bevel.

See the crude diagram below where I show the screw protruding from the top, which would be the case if I use any longer of a screw. If I bevel the top instead of the lid, the issue then just moves to the top, which might be marginally better. Alternatively, I could split the angle and bevel both the lid and the top, which would allow me to use slightly longer screws on both sides of the hinge, but that seems less than optimal.

There's probably a reason so many of these show repairs...

This led me to consider strap hinges, though as has been pointed out, it's not traditional for these pieces, and I'm not a huge fan of the medieval look.