Advancing Your Skills: Demo: Hinges

Lesson: Hinges

Cut tubing in to 3 (+) equal pieces
Make sure that the tubing pieces together equal the length of the side you will be soldering them to.
Use the third hands, pins, metal shims, and/or binding wire to hold the tubing in place for each side.
Solder the tubing to the piece.
After piece is almost complete (exceptions: patination, epoxy, other color treatments besides enamelling), set the hinge.
Remember that a hinge is a glorified rivet.

Tips and tricks:

You can also ball the other end of the wire instead of hammering, or set a hinge with a tube rivet.
Use the amount of pieces that seem to fit proportionally. Long seams should have more than 3 pieces.
Never use an even number of pieces. The hinge is much sturdier with an odd number.
Cut your tubing a little long, and file off if needed. This way if the edges of the tubing get singed (melted) while soldering, you’ll still be ok.

Your tubing should line up straight and fit tightly together- no gaps. Besides looking much more professional, this helps the integrity of the hinge.
If the wall that you are affixing the hinge to is thick- 18ga (depending on size of hinge) or a construction; you can use your round needle file to make a channel for the tubing to sit into.
Make sure to heat the piece MUCH more than the tubing. The tubing won’t require any direct flame; it is so much smaller it will come to soldering temperature through heat transfer.
To perfectly position your tubing, use your scribe to make marks on the piece. Markings made with a Sharpie will just burn off.
Make sure that the tubing you are using can accommodate a 20g wire or thicker.
Just like with pin backs, nickel is the strongest, copper the weakest.
You can use a dab of glue to secure your tubing in place prior to soldering, so that you can make sure you have it placed correctly.
You can also create a hinge out of pieces of thicker wire or sheet. Simply drill through the pieces and run the wire through.

Advancing Your Skills