Cutting Hinge Slots In Door Frame
- Cutting a door hinge mortise with a chisel. A hinge mortise is the shallow cut made in the edge of a door and the door jamb that mirrors the size and thickness of the door hinge. The hinge mortise allows the hinge to be mounted flush with the jamb and door so the door will close properly.
- When I purchased a multi tool a few months ago one of the things in mind was to see if it would serve cutting hinge slots. With a current build in progress, it was time to see. First - I took the flush cutting head that was 1.25 inches wide and having a straight saw blade edge to the grinder and ground it down on each side to leave a cutting.
If you are replacing an existing door with a unit that was not purchased prehung, you will need to install the hinges and a lockset.
Plan to install the door in stages rather than as one unit.
You will need the door, side and head jambs, hinges, doorstops, a lockset and trim.
If you've recently removed a door from its frame to replace it with another door that will use hinges in different locations or that will hang on the other side of the frame, or if you don't plan to fill the space with another door, you'll need to fill in the cutouts you made in the door frame when you first installed the hinges. Check that the cut is the correct depth. When cut correctly, your mortise should sit flush against the edge of the door. Make sure the hinge is no more than 1 millimetre (0.039 in) off, since larger gaps could make the door too tight to open easily or too loose to close properly. Repeat the cutting process if the mortise isn’t deep enough.
You will need to construct and install the jambs, shimming them to make them plumb and square.
After checking for level and nailing the frame into position, cut off the shims flush with the edges of the jamb.
Install the hinges on the door first. Be sure that the door is approximately ¼-inch narrower than the jamb opening. If you need to trim it, plane or saw the hinge side. The latch side should be beveled.
See also: How To Install An Exterior Door Slab
To be able to where the hinges are to go on the door and the jamb, set the door in place and temporarily shim it to make a 1/8-inch clearance on both sides. Then mark the hinge positions on the jamb and the stile edge of the door.
Usually, the top of the top hinge is 7 inches from the top of the door and the bottom of the bottom hinge is 11 inches from the bottom of the door.
Center the middle hinge between them for exterior doors. Take the door down, and trace each hinge outline on the edge of the door with a sharp pencil or knife, allowing each hinge leaf to extend 1/4-inch beyond the edge of the door so that the knuckle will clear the casing.
Make the knuckle inside, not outside, the house. Using a sharp chisel or router, cut mortises to the thickness of the hinges.
Then screw the hinges to the door, pre-drilling for each screw. Be sure to drill straight holes; if you drive the screw in at an angle it will pull the hinge out of alignment.
Cut mortises in the jamb the same way as for the door, tracing the outlines of each hinge on the jamb and then chiseling out the mortise. A trick to hanging a door is to mark and attach the top hinge first. Screw the top hinge to the jamb, then mark the other hinges and cut them.
When the door is up, check that it closes without binding anywhere.
It should have about 1/8-inch clearance on each side.
Make adjustments by placing a thin cardboard shim behind a hinge or by deepening the mortise.
Cut the bottom of the door to allow clearance for any carpeting, the threshold, or weather stripping. Use stop material 1 1/8 or 1 3/8-inches wide.
Hold the door closed in it’s proper position, and have a helper trace the outside edge of the door along the jambs with a sharp pencil.
Then measure and cut the stops to length, and nail them with the outside edges on the pencil line.
Cutting Hinge Slots In Door Frame Sizes
For greater security, install jamb stock made for exterior doors; the stops are milled as an integral part of the jamb and cannot be pried off.
Cutting Hinge Slots In Door Frame Lock
Install the threshold, lockset, weatherstripping, and trim, using common techniques. You can either paint the door or finish it with a stain or clear finish. Applying a double coat of oil-based sealer will ensure a handsome appearance.
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As many of you know, we’ve been renovating our townhouse which is a rental property we are getting ready to sell. Most of the work has been done by contractors, but I took on a few projects myself, including the one I’m sharing with you today. I’m going to show you how to cut out notches for door hinges the easy way! I had no idea how to go about doing this, but my contractor was going to charge me $1400 to install and paint 10 doors, so I decided I could definitely figure out how to do it myself and save some money. So today I’m showing you what I learned! Hopefully some of you will find it helpful in case you ever have to swap out or install doors in your home.
What You’ll Need:
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- Pencil
- Tape Measure (or the old doors that you’re replacing, to use as a guide)
Since I was replacing the old dated doors with new hollow core 6 panel doors, I needed to create notches for the new hinges. I bought this RYOBI door hinge template at Home Depot and this made it super simple. I’ll show you how it works.
Now before I actually used this on the actual doors, I practiced with it on a piece of scrap wood which I highly recommend doing just so you can get a feel for how it works.
First of all, you adjust the template based on the size of your hinges. I’m installing 3 1/2 inch hinges so I adjusted it accordingly.
Cutting Hinge Slots In Door Frame Doors
You also adjust it based upon whether your hinges have curved corners or not. Mine have a 5/8” radius on the corners. You can remove the curved pieces from the template if you’re using square cornered hinges. I adjusted it to the proper length and made sure both curved pieces were installed since both corners on one side of my hinges are curved.
Next, you adjust your router depth using this guide on the side of the template.
The template comes with a special router bit for you to use which has a little guard on it so that you don’t cut into the sides of the template.
Then you place your router bit in the appropriate slot. I used the one on the left since my hinges are thin (the other one is for thicker hinges) and then adjusted the depth of my router accordingly.
By the way I absolutely love this little battery powered compact router from Ridgid.
After I practiced on my scrap wood, it was time to cut notches in the actual doors. I used our old doors to mark and measure the spots for the new hinges. If you don’t have existing doors to use as a guide, then measure from the top of the door frame and subtract 1/8” (per the template instructions).
Once you’ve set your depth, you attach your template onto the edge of your door making sure the curved corners are facing the correct side, and tighten it with the little knob on the side.
Cutting Hinge Slots In Door Frames
Then, you just carve away inside the template using your router. Be sure to turn your router off before removing it from the template as I did accidentally bump the side of it a couple times when I tried to pull it out before it had turned all the way off. (Oops!)
This template made the job so ridiculously easy. After you’ve routed for your hinges, you just position the hinge in place and then can pre-drill holes for your screws. I ordered new hinges which haven’t arrived yet so I’m using an old one for demonstration purposes here.
This isn’t sponsored, by the way, I just found this template super helpful and thought you might too.
I’ll be sharing the full townhouse renovation very soon! It’s so close to being done and then it will be put on the market. You can also check out my YouTube video tutorial for this DIY project here: