Butt Hinges 101

All right, Matt. So we're here talking about butt hinges, what are some of the common questions when customers call in a question about butt hinges?

Yeah. So the first thing that we want to look at one is the shape of the hinge and making sure we're matching the mounting hole pattern. Because the vast majority of the time we're getting calls, these are people looking to replace the hinges that they have on their current application.

Gotcha. So once you match up your whole pattern in the shape, I guess the next big thing is the hinge pin. Right? Right. So there's three main different types of hinge pin styles. When you look at these here, first one I want to look at is this hinge pin down. So you'll notice the mounting surface the hinge pin is actually below the mounting surface. And the big the tricky part with this is that it really requires special tooling or relief or a pocket that this hinge pin drops down into to be able to mount right.

And that's what we would refer to as a flush mount hinge. Gotcha with flush mount. And the nice thing about it right is that when you step on it, you're not stepping on a hinge pin, right, so your footsteps on it, and there's no hinge pin sitting up. So it's, you're really nice in that way. But the other tricky thing is that it does not fold all the way open.

Right it only opens to about 100 degrees or so Gotcha. And you compare that to this is the switched hinge. And this hinge pin is kind of in the middle, right, Matt.

It’s not a top mount, like you see on the left side there. But it's also not a flush mount, it's kind of like they were looking for a Goldilocks range. So it will still stand a little bit proud. But when it folds back, it folds back further than what your flush mount hinge will. So that's assuage tinge.

But again, it would require some special tooling, you just mount this in a spot that there's not a recess for this hinge pin, correct, correct tool. And the last one is the hinge pin up. And I would say that, in the odd case, I know most people are probably watching this trying to replace a butt hinge. But if you were adding a new, you know hatch or lid or something like that, or even if it was just some specialty project, maybe you're doing some amount of something on your fence or right, these are all real nice exterior grade marine grade hinges.

And if you're doing a project like that, and you don't have a special pocket for your hinge pin, you know this pin up is definitely going to be your play right now. Negative, it's kind of all the inverse of each other, you step on it, and it’s not super comfortable because the hinge pin is up. It's all it's a thick hinge. It's a tripping hazard and correct. But the nice thing is it folds all the way over on itself.

Yes full over, she had this little bit of a trade off. In some cases, you want the full fold. In other cases, it might be an advantage to not so those are kind of the three different hinge pin considerations. Matt, what are we also missing as far as you know, butt hinge questions or concerns?

Yeah, so some of the other options that you see that are similar to this are also offered in a friction hinge version. So you get the same shape, you get the same hole pattern, and in the majority of cases, but the hinge itself is very tight, very strong, you can't move it with your bare hands. And the idea there is you can replace gas shocks or stainless steel spring hold up or something along those lines that would otherwise hold your hatchet. One of the challenges that you faced with this is it has to be through moulded it's too strong, it'll pull just tap screws right out of the fiberglass.

Yeah, when we first when we first got them, we were really excited about it being a good option for retrofit, they made it match a lot of common hole sizes. One of the tricky things is it's difficult for just a boat owner to know, you know how many different of these friction hinges you need to be able to hold your lid up? Depends a little bit on the lid size, it also depends a little bit on. What do you mean by hold it up? Do you mean just get it up to 90 and stay or do you want it to stay at you know, 45 degrees, it's been a little bit of a trickier thing, but it's really nice once you get it right,

Right 100% it’s a fantastic option. So we have a couple other specialty hinges. So we have here, what you have there is a flush mount hinge, let me a flush mount hinge, that's also a full swing, it'll swing a full 180 degree. So you see it side by side with the with the other flush mount hinge with a single pin that'll fold about 100 degrees or so just pass the 90.

This will fold all the way over on itself, which is really nice for fish box applications where maybe you don't want it to open to 100 degrees, you want to fold all the way back and kind of lean against the gunnel or that way you don't need a friction hinge, you don't need a gastroc it'll just hold itself open at that point.

But it does need again you need to recess you need to rail for the hinge butt. In fact, it's even a little bit bigger in this case because you have a double hinge butt.

100% so it still requires tooling still a little bit more of a specialty hinge butt a nice option if you have a flush mount situation where you still want it to fold all the way back. Awesome. So this is the last hinge we have not covered what do we have here. So that is a take butt hinge. So the nice thing is, is there's a pin on one side and a barrel on the other.

You get to have the same hinge you can mount obviously the same sides to the same parts of the door and that way you can slide the door off of the frame and stowed away somewhere. You know it's a really good option for electronics box stores or maybe console doors or something that you'd be Want to get the door out of the way so you can get access to all your all your either plumbing or wiring whatever you may be working on.

Awesome. So that's butt hinge 101. Is there anything you can think of that we haven't covered? No, that's about it. All right. Well, we have a team of marine industry experts and give us a call if you have any other questions looking for butt hinges.