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This is a great template, adjustable for a wide array of hinge sizes and door thicknesses. I replaced 12 doors in my house and it cut accurate mortises every time.The downside is the included bit. It lasted for only 3 doors before it started smoking. I bought a Milescraft carbide hinge mortising bit (with bearing) for $10 to replace the Porter Cable bit.
Setting up the tool for this hinge setup was pretty easy. So I basically just transferred the location of the hinges from the old doors to the new doors using a carpenters square on the top and bottom of the hinge location. Before I attempted to cut anything using it I read the directions several times while holding the template in my hands so I could see exactly what the directions were explaining. I have to say that for less than $30 it was well worth the investment.
I was using a pretty big Craftsman router and was very careful to keep the template as flat as possible against the door while routing it out. The tool worked perfectly the entire time and I didn't have any problems with it. I was a little skeptical about how well it was going to work after reading some of the reviews on amazon.com about it but decided to give it a shot. I used a scrap piece of plywood and did a couple practice runs to get the depth set exactly for the hinges I was using. Those marks were 3.5 inches apart (imagine that since they were 3.5 inch hinges originally installed) I then marked the centers at 1 3/4 inches; this is where precisions comes into play.
Sometimes the template would shift slightly during nailing and you definitely don't want that to happen. I was using 3.5 inch hinges with a 5/8 inch radius and I was putting them onto 1 3/8 inch solid pine slab doors. The double headed nails were not very happy about going into plywood but they worked very well on the pine doors. I wasn't smashing the nails into the template either; I would tap them in just enough to make sure the template was secure.
I picked one of these tools up at the home depot after looking at several hinge template tools online. The template has notches to identify the center of whatever hinge size you have selected. You need to make absolutely sure the center mark on the tool lines up exactly with the center mark for your hinge. The doors I used were only 1 3/8 inch thick so that's not a lot of support under the template and I kept that in mind while using the router. The tool itself is made from a reasonably hard plastic material and I was careful while adjusting the hinge size so that the arms wouldn't break off like someone else had written about in another review. Some type of metal sleeve at the nailing location during manufacture would be a great improvement on this tool. It came with the template, router bit, 4 pegs (you only need 2 to set the thickness of the door you are using) and 2 double headed nails.
Other than that I found it to be very useful and all of the mortises came out perfectly. I think the key to using this tool is to be gentle and precise. The directions do specifically say that if you need to readjust the size of the hinge on the tool to slide the adjusters in only one direction and if necessary slide it all the way out and start over from the largest size (you'll see what I mean if you buy it and look at it). The only thing I did notice was that the location on the template where the double headed nails were continually being nailed into started to indent (I installed 7 doors for a total of 21 hinges).
I should also add that the jig seems to work better with a trim router/palm router rather than a full-size fixed or plunge router. I then used regular quick release clamps placed over the door and the "fence" to hold the jig in place while routing.
Like any tool,whether it's a power tool or a hand tool, some adjustments have to be made in order to really make them work. I felt compelled to write a review because this item seems to be getting bashed because of user error and/or inexperience.
I threw those stupid doubleheaded nails away and screwed my jig to a properly positioned piece of 1" stock, which then functioned as a fence. I used this jig this morning and ended up with 3 perfect hinge mortises on a $500.00 wood and glass door.
I'm very pleased.The bottom line is-you have to plan and think before you just start nailing the jig down onto a door and routing away. This approach works well.
The only reason I give this item a 4 rather than a 5 is that it is not likely to last more than a year or two for everyday use by a professional.
On this vacation home, I had seven doors to hang and decided to buy it here.The directions were okay except they fail to explain just how to reverse the plastic guides for a 5/8" curved hinge. In short, after doing everything, when I went to hang most of the doors, they banged into the existing stop moulding. Took forever. That involved a lot of chiseling and time. I found this product to be a real time saver. This is certainly worth the purchase price. It's sturdy plastic, so there is no real problem there.The only issue I encountered had to do with the accuracy of the depth of the hinge placement. It works well overall, and after seven doors, could probably do another seventy without falling apart.
I had to use the chisel to cheat a bit and get another 16th of an inch cut, then it seemed to work well. The double-headed nails they give you are fine. I had hung about 12 doors in my own home without the benefit of this template. The products just doesn't place the hinge back far enough on the door edge. I played around with it for awhile and eventually figured it out, but it took awhile. A lot of the other criticisms on these reviews are really nitpicking. My 3/4 hp router worked very well with this product. I just wish it could be adjusted to eliminate the problem described above.
I am a 20 plus years experience carpenter/handyman and would not even recomend these for the homeowner for occasional use because it didn,t even work for me the first attempt. I bought the hinge template and the strike plate template for $25 each at my local home store. I am very disapointed in Porter cable. The first time I tried to use these the locking pins would not stay locked and the chincy teeny nails (not double headed) barely held In all fairness the included router bit was high quality. I took them back immediatly and would not reccomend anyone purchase one. For many years I have bought extremely well made long lasting tools from them, and now it seems they are trying to compete with cheap store brands made in china. Too bad.
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