Manufacturer: Porter-Cable
Model: 59370
Rating: 
(25 reviews)
| List Price: Offer Price: $24.96 |
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Features:
- Door hinge template; works with 1-3/8 and 1-3/4-inch doors
- Allows mortising of 3-inch, 3-1/2-inch, and 4-inch hinges with square corners or 1/4-inch and 5/8-inch radius corners
- Fiberglass-reinforced plastic
- Includes template, high-speed mortiser router bit with bearing guide, instructions
- 0.8 by 8 by 16 inches; 8.3 ounces; 1-year warranty
Product Description
For mortising of 3″, 3-1/2″ and 4″ square amd 5/8″ radius and 4-1/2″ square hinges on doors and door jambs. Includes high-speed steel router bit.
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5 Comments
This is about as simple as it gets, Changing the doors out in my home, and needed to mortise the hinges. I found this tool on Amazon and for the money it is as easy as 1-2-3, would highly recommend.
This probably isn’t the kind of review Amazon expects. The product is packaged well and looks to be a nice tool, but I’ve yet to use it as I’ve figured out a decent work-around. And, as always, Amazon delivered as advertised.
Since I havent used it I can’t really rate it, but I gave it three stars because it’s a neutral number.
Anyway, the work-around: I realized while the product was in-transit I could make a guide using a hole saw, particle board, a sabre saw and a file. It took about 20 min to make the guide, including test cuts. I use a collar (something like this: Porter-Cable 42036 3/8-Inch O.D. Template Guide) to follow the guide’s profile with the router. It’s a dedicated tool, but it’s cheap and you can make many of them for different applications as you need them.
The template worked fine. This was my second choice in templates. I was looking at one for $69 that clamped to the door but it was out of stock and I wanted to get the job done. I only had to do a few doors so I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a template I was only going to use a few times in my life. The two double-headed nails that they provided were OK for attaching to the door but I was getting some movement when using my heavy 3.25 horsepower plunge router. I recommend using a couple of short sheet rock screws to hold it firmly in place. Their directions for setting the depth of the bit were funny. They wanted you to turn the router upside down and put the template on the bottom of the router to adjust the blade depth with the hinge on top of the template. This was very awkward as I was not using the Porter Cable router but a Bosch plunge router that has a cord coming out the top of the router not the side (like the Porter Cable they pictured) so it was crazy trying to balance the router, template and hinge on with the cord of the router in my way. Why couldn’t they just give you the depth measurement of the template where the router was going to be resting? And on top of that the hinge does not lay flat on the template. I measured the depth of the hinge and did a test on an old door for depth. I did find that the pins used for adjusting the door depth were in my way so I had to turn my router to go around the pins. The rounded hinges fit perfectly. I found the template awkward but it worked.
I had to replace some door that had been destroyed by vandals. Whoever put these doors in used blanks and were inconsistent in the hinge spacing. Because the hinges had 1/4 radius corners and the homeowner was extremely fussy I did not want to spend hours with a chisel and knife and then not get the corners perfect so I bought the jig. It worked perfectly and was simple to use. I would rather have had a clamping system but the small double headed brads left holes so small that they were easy to fill and became unnoticeable. I did not have to do the jams so I do not know how accurate that would be but the door hinge mortises worked perfectly and took just minutes. For the money I would highly recommend it. If I had to do many doors I don’t know but pretty much everything is pre-hung today.
I saw this on Amazon and decided to buy it at a local tool store. The price was about the same. I thought that it was a bit expensive for a plastic template, two nails, and plastic pins, but I am using someone’s great idea, getting convenience, and saving time. Everything worked fine. I was replacing hollow core doors with used solid wood doors we got from the ReStore, a place for used house and construction materials. The router bit and template cut a professional looking mortise, better than I can do anytime with a chisel. You have to be pretty accurate though when measuring the point where to mount the template or you will have to use a chisel make a minor adjustment. The hardest thing was to hang the heavy wood doors, but at least making the mortises were quick and easy. I highly recommend this tool.
Another thing, when we looked into getting new doors, not only did they charge for the door, but they also charged to cut the mortises in the door, which was more than the price of this tool. I have hung two doors so far and have one more to go, so this Porter Cable tool has already paid for itself.