Hey everyone……I’ve not been present much for quite some time, but I still read every day and still feel our old friendships here.
Just need some tips, ideas, and links if you have them, about making a living hinge. I don’t even need one, but I love how they look and how they function and I would like to make one just so I can learn how to do it again. I made a small sample a year or so ago and it turned out perfectly, but it was obviously a fluke.
I did a big search on the forum first and nearly every link I found was so old it was no longer valid. Then I searched online in general. I found a ‘generator’ which at first I thought would be fantastic, but my first try was a bust…as well as a couple more tries after that. I will admit, I’m not really that familiar with the parameters it was using. Another website looked really promising too, but involved so much ‘foreign’ math to me I couldn’t even get close.
Just working with small samples. This is the first one I made without help…from memory sort of…and it does bend, but is really stiff.
Sorry for the long post. I just wanted to make sure I let you all know that I have tried finding other help. It’s no wonder though, that in the end I turn to the best. You.
Plywood tends to bend on one direction better than the other. Test it out before you cut, align your hinge with the bendy direction and you may have better luck.
It may not be super different because this looks like mdf core but give it a shot.
Possibly? Generally you think aligning with grain will be more fragile but plywood gets its strength from the plies not sharing the same grain direction. In this case, the central mdf layers don’t even have a grain direction at all.
It might be worth a try if you bend the ply pre-cut and feel a noticeable difference in one direction vs the other.
Besides really the living hinge doesn’t bend the wood as much as twist it. Put the cuts closer together and the individual sections will be thinner and easier to twist. How closely you pack the lines directly affects the radius you can bend to.
I’ve only made one once! I bought and resized a design in early years, and used proofgrade mdf. It was perfect and we still open the box almost every day.
I know I bought a couple other designs with the living hinges, but never made them.
Thanks for all of that…but, this part in particular. There are certain things my brain doesn’t process well…and this was one of them. I will try your suggestions.
Well, hello back to you Peg! It’s nice to hear from you anyway, even though you can’t help. I thought for sure I had saved the file for the first one and only successful one I made. But no…of course not!
@Xabbess Please do drop by, especially for help and questions, as that is the very essence of this forum. Or just to say Hi to old friendships!
What seems to be the matter with your test? From your first picture it looks like the beam is not cutting all the way through in some parts of the material, and that may hinder the bendability of the hinge. As you surely know living hinges are staggered cuts that weaken the material and allow it to bend in one or more directions, up to a point without losing integrity and breaking. From your second picture it seems to me that the material is quite thick for a living hinge. From what I have seen, usually a thinner material (like 1/8" or 3 mm) is used for that purpose like in this post where @geek2nurse used 1/8" material.
This other project in his video mentions that he also used 3 mm material for his eyeglasses case:
Have you tried cutting the living hinge pattern in the direction of the veins of the top veneer surface instead of crosswise as @evansd2 suggested? If it is plywood, it usually has an odd number of plys and cutting in the direction of the veneer in most of the plys might help, although the lenght of the cuts vs. the remaining gap of material is defintely a factor to consider.
Maybe if you could share your intended use, some of the more experienced members here might be able to chip in with suggestions.
Here are two online living hinge generators you may want to explore:
This site has several downloadable patterns:
and this template has the straight living hinge pattern in different pitches from 1.5 to 4 mm in .25 mm increments which allow for different bending allowances.
As many in this forum suggest, testing is your friend. I would select a thinner material and cut the different patterns at 1 mm increments to see how they behave.
Please share your results with the rest of us so we may learn from your experience!
“Please do drop by, especially for help and questions, as that is the very essence of this forum. Or just to say Hi to old friendships!”
Thank you…I will!
“What seems to be the matter with your test?”
It’s just too tight. It has absolutely cut all the way through, so that’s not the problem. As I mentioned, it’s PG 1/8"…and I have been successful before using this thickness.
I’m not really making anything…just trying to relearn how to do it. Thanks for all the links…I’m sure each one of them has something that might be helpful. I’ll keep working on it.
“As many in this forum suggest, testing is your friend”…this has always been my mantra and it still holds true.
I had forgotten that he had requested I test his matchbox design with a living hinge! It also turned out perfect, and I used proofgrade Cherry plywood.
I have always loved the living hinge. The bend of wood is just appealing.
