Kreg Hinge Jig

[Andy Harris]

I make a lot of doors so bought one of the new hinge jigs. Works well if anybody considering getting one. The only comment I would have is that it seems to cut the hole deeper than needs to even on shallowest setting.

[Trace Farthing]

Has the added depth been a problem? I'm considering getting one but if it's a problem I'll probably go another route.

[Jay Boutwell]

Hi Trace, I saw your post and thought that I would give you something to think about.  I am not blowing smoke but talking to you as a professional with countless doors and hinges in my past 27 plus years.  There are much better methods that assure you of accuracy. 

The hinge depth is a critical point in installing European hinges and accuracy is of the utmost importance.  The Kreg hinge jig is pretty much the same technology that Rockler and a few other cabinet tool manufactures put out a few years ago.  I have seen it used and have seen a lot of doors and fixed a lot of doors that are ruined by the inaccuracy of the jig.  Once you mess up a cabinet door stile by boring a bad hinge hole you have caused yourself a large headache and even the best fix in not a good fix and you will have a scar on the door for all to see.  A 35 mm hole bored wrong makes a large hole to patch.  The holes can be bored crooked, too deep and or not deep enough and all are un-satisfactory in cabinet building.  If you bore the hole too deep many times it will bore through the edge of the outside cabinet edge detail.  You bore it shallow the hinge will set proud and thus the hinged door edge is very difficult and sometimes impossible to seat it properly on the stiles and rails.  Bore the hole crooked and you will have hinge binding issues.   There is also the issue with the distance of the hinge cup and it relationship with the door edge.  Many of the doors that I have seen bored with this type of system are not always bored consistent and will vary the positions of the holes, even on the same door,  and this is due to the slippage and jig or its positioning of the jig onto the door stile.  In use the jig covers the bored area and you have not chance of determining where the jig is boring once you set it in place and often he results are less that pleasing.

The most accurate way is to use the dedicated hinge boring press however since it often dedicated to a particular hinge brand such as blum or salice  and will cause you to have to resort to the a particular hinge brand.  They are also expensive and is the reason I build the shop built jig that I use.  I use many brands and style of hinges and my method will accommodate any hinge and will equal the accuracy of a dedicated hinge boring press.

I have used my shop made jig for many years and never have a problem as it uses the accuracy of a drill press and bores consistent holes each time and is fast and easy to use.  I posted it a year or so ago on the community as well as many articles on European hinge use.  If they have not been removed there are photos of the jig posted in some of my many prior posts and is easily and in-expensive to use.   It will cost you about 5 dollars and some scrap hard wood and a few minutes to build.  Good luck and enjoy your work.

[Andy Harris]

Trace I just don't drill all way that minimum stop collar depth setting normally does. You do have to make sure clamped securely as it an move like jay says. Just practice on scrap wood first.

[Trace Farthing]

Thanks for the response, guys!

I have 25 linear feet of uppers and lowers, as well as, an island to build this next month. It's my biggest cabinet job to date. Up to this point, I've done okay with a drill press set up. I like the idea of a jig to speed things up and cut a little stress out of the process but having to finesse a jig defeats the purpose of it.

I suppose The Company is aware of this. It's really too bad. I've had good results with the K4MS and shelf pin jig and was hoping this would be a similar bang for the buck. I've seen some of the brand-specific jigs, and they're nice, but, as Jay pointed out, you either get locked into them or start an expensive collection.

I have a few days to get a plan. I'll look up Jay's jig and go from there. Thank again!

[Jay Boutwell]

Hi Trace, I think you are thinking much like I did when I first started doing professional work.  At first it was a mystery as to tooling up a shop as everyone had their own idea and every company came out of the woodwork.  I have great success with the Kreg pocket hole tool however I own the all metal one that that I first bought when they were a young company,  It is the K-2 of which I modified the clamp system to use a air clamp to speed up production.  I also have a K-3 and a K-4 and have not had any of the problems that many have reported.   Of course every company always had the great tool to do a specialty job but the catch was that it was expensive and more often than not, dedicated to one particular brand of product.  One of these was the hinge boring drill press.  I used several and found that there was nothing special about them other than the special fixture to position the point of the hinge hole.   That is why I build the jig.  That was about 27 years ago and it has always performed what I needed and without causing any mistakes.  The only thing it will not do is drill the smaller holes for the dowel pins however from my experience it is much better to use a screw as I have seen too many of the nylon plastic dowels pull out from the door frame.   Most of the hinges that they send you now days have the dowel attached so I just remove them and replace with a screw.  The only reason that the dowel is there is for speedy installation of which they press and or drive in the dowel, which is another feature that the company that build the hinge drill add to the cost of the unit. I took it on myself to look for the post that I said I had posted on here, and found it but see that some are missing of which I had with the photos of the jig in use in detail.  I did find the below listed with one showing a few photos that will explain the simple jig to you.  Basically it is just a straight piece of hardwood (oak) that I can lay across the drill press table.  You will see that there are two simple old style cabinet hinges attached with two short pieces of hardwood that you can flip up and down providing you with a stop block for the door edge that positions the hinge both from the edge of the door and also positions it from the top and bottom of the door.   (Note: I have found that 1/8 of an inch is a good distance to shoot for on the edge as the hinges are adjustable enough to make up for any small fractions that is specified in some hinge installations.   The 1/8 of an inch measurement also gives you some wood strength to the edge of the door and the hinge cup edge.) You will find that you will need yourself a set up block of which will set the jig fixture on the drill press table so that it references the location of the drill bit both for the edge and the centering of the door stile so that the bored hole is in a given location.   As a rule of thumb I find that a 3 inch center from the edge works well for most cabinet doors.  There is one exception as you must make sure that there is not obstruction inside of the cabinet box that will be in the way of a hinge.  An example of this would be such things as a fixed shelf and or maybe a revolving tray such as a lazy Susan and or a  pull out shelf of rack.  In these cases you might want to relocate the hinge position.  It also gives you a depth position that you will drill a 35mm hole into the block.  To make the stop of the bit drill depth I use the drill press stop on the quill travel.  That is the easiest method and gives you the depth without having to guess and re-measure with each hole.  (Note:  I find it a good idea of using 13/16" thick material for building doors as you have the extra thickness of which to increase the thickness of the door that is of benefit in allowing you to have a thicker amount on the panel groove back side.  Most commercially made doors use 3/4" material and when a raised panel is used it soon breaks out the groove on the back side.  I explained this on some of my door making post that I have made on here.)  Here is the perma links that I found that might interest you. http://kregjig.ning.com/main/search/search?q=+metric+european+hinges    and

http://kregjig.ning.com/forum/topics/birch-and-pine?commentId=29001...

Should you wish to talk to me on my personal e-mail it is salemcode@Comcast,net and put the words "Cabinet Technology" in the subject line so I will notice it.  Have a good day. 

[Trace Farthing]

Jay,
Thanks for the links to the photos. Your jig is exactly what I was looking for. Now, I want to upgrade my bench top drill press to a floor model with a nice table.

For short runs, a portable jig is probably fine but for larger runs, I see where yours is faster and easier.

I modified a Rockler shutter jig for the same reason. It was okay for making a couple of panels but tedious for much more.

[Shawn McDonald]

 I had this same concern about hinge pocket depth.

I added a washer between the stop collar and the jig body. 

Tested on scrap and it worked perfectly.

[Robert Melrose]

I've found that with Euro hinges and the profile I route into the edges that I need to use thicker stock for the rails and stiles of my cabinet doors. I make mine ⅞" and no longer have a problem.