How to Make a Spring Hinge

Making a spring hinge allows you to keep a door in a specific position when it is open or shut. A spring hinge lets you open the door, but once you let go, it will return to a certain position. Spring hinges are commonly used in all sorts of applications such as cabinet doors, boxes and various other items that include a latch or a lock. Making your own spring hinge using a regular pin hinge is quite an easy job and something that anyone with a sense of practicality should be able to manage.

Separate the Parts of the Hinge

First, place a narrow nail through one end of the hinge. This should be pushed through until the pin inside the hinge is pushed out of the assembly. You will then be able to separate the two main sections of the hinge.

Draw a Rectangle and Cut Out the Area

Using a pencil, mark a rectangular shape on the hinge. This mark should be located exactly in the center where both halves of the hinge meet. Use the ruler to get a perfectly accurate measurement if necessary. Provided that you are satisfied with the markings, you should then cut the area out using a pair of angle nippers. You should end up with a hinge with a hole in the middle of them, covering the central parts of both sides of the hinge. This empty space is where you will place the spring and pin to make it into a functioning spring hinge.

Get the Music Wire

Carefully place one end of the hinge pin in a vice clamp and fasten it in place. You will then need some thin wire, ideally music wire, which should also have one end placed in the vice, tight enough so that it cannot move.

Coil the Wire around the Hinge Pin

With the pliers, take the loose end of the wire and wrap it around the pin of the hinge that you removed earlier. Make sure that the coils of the wire are tightly wrapped around the pin and they are as close to each other as you can get them. Keep coiling the wire until the coil is a little shorter than the area of the hinge that you cut out earlier. The end of the wire should end up pointing in the opposite direction as the other end. Take out the hinge pin and the wire from the vice and, using the angle nippers, cut away any excess wire so that no more than half an inch remains on each end.

Finish Up

Align both halves of the hinge, placing the hinge pin with the wire coiled around it into the hinge. The coiled spring that you made should be in the area that you cut out for the hinge. Thread the pin back into place and through the spring. The new spring hinge should be ready to use.