A little machining project

See if you can find a place to hide a grease zerk on it. A shot of waterproof wheel bearing grease lasts a long time.

See if you can find a place to hide a grease zerk on it. A shot of waterproof wheel bearing grease lasts a long time.

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GM uses pressed-in door hinge pins with knurling or an oversized retaining section under the head and flanged bronze bushings in the center barrel. The flange takes vertical thrust. They do wear out but are easily replaced. My Honda has an inconspicuous oil hole in the center barrel that's accessible with the door open.

Many an old barn hinge was steel on steel with whatever lube they could find and sometimes not.

I do like the weld on hinges with bushing and grease zerks though.

------------------- I see, a Hobbit door is a Chinese Moon Door. I'd make the hinge pins a size that matches threaded rod so the hinge barrels could be held in axial alignment for mounting with nuts on sections of threaded rod joined with couplers, which allow them to be removed from the middle. If the threaded rod isn't a close fit the nuts could be coned to center in the barrel holes. The big box hardware stores sell thin plastic wedges for centering a door in its opening.

Many an old barn hinge was steel on steel with whatever lube they could find and sometimes not.

I do like the weld on hinges with bushing and grease zerks though.

Bob La Londe CNC Molds N Stuff

----------------------------- I put zerks on all my shop made pivot pins and made sure replacement vehicle ball and U joints had them, but they distract from the hand forged aesthetic of blacksmithing. Small holes for these are easier to hide and good enough for my car doors.

The OEM ball and U joints on my truck were "lubed for life". They died when the lube dried out, so the statement was literally correct.

He already thought of that ... not sure where he wants the zerks , probably in the side of the cups near the closed end . I'm going to put bearing balls in the ends of the cups , reduce friction since this door is supposed to be quite heavy . A little taper on the ends of the pins will keep the balls at the perimeter of the hole .

The small ball oil ports found on machine tools are a nice alternative, and they can be had pretty cheap. When I had one get messed up on my lathe Precision Mathews sent me a bag of them no charge. I live in the desert so I hope you can see my obsessions with minimizing dust intrusion. I prefer grease with a zirc, because you can regrease and force most gritty grease out. This is used as a sort of cleaning operation on some CNC router way bearing as well.

Sounds like the steel will be OK; as for the heavy door, though, you can't fit strap hinges as easily as mortised ones; they're gonna attach with through-the-face screws to the door and a heavy timber post?

That heavy door will shift unless the strap hinges are secured by something more than friction; one solution is to heat 'em cherry red and press into the wood, to make a socket that won't allow the strap to twist. The entire periphery of the strap has a wood socket that way. Otherwise, the few-screws wood/metal contact will just crush the wood fiber and things will move. Getting the hinges correctly in-line will be important, of course, and I'd want to have a bore-indicating laser pointer to guide the hinge placement.

I'm not hanging it , just making the pivot parts . I'll suggest he uses some kind of sleeve thru the door and hinge in at least 2 locations per hinge strap ... alignment isn't a big problem if ya got a straight piece of angle iron and a few clamps .