Stuck Door Hinge

Liz was cleaning more hardware today, and came across several door hinges that were stuck (even after soaking in a slow cooker for a few hours).

I’d freed up a few of these guys before, but had forgotten the exact setup of how I did it. Decided to record the process here, in case I forget again. Nothing fancy, and this is not a “one amazing trick” post. Just a reminder for my future self, if this ever happens again.

The stuck hinge. Lots of WD40 already applied previously, and this guy had been sitting in a slow cooker with some cleaning solution for a long while. It would turn, but wouldn’t come apart.

Clamped the hinge to a piece of wood for stability (from the side).

While this keeps the hinge from moving side to side, we also need to keep the hinge fixed in place.

Since I can’t easily clamp the hinge directly to the plywood it’s resting on, I do the next best thing: clamp the piece of wood it’s attached to.

With one side of the hinge affixed to the wood, and resting on the plywood… that particular side isn’t going anywhere. Which means that any downward force on the other hinge should dislodge it.

We have a mallet around here somewhere (that I can’t find), so I was stuck using a hammer. But I wanted to avoid damaging the hinge with a direct blow. I ended up setting a small piece of wood on top of the hinge, and struck that instead. After a few blows, the outside hinge piece came right off.

In hindsight, now that I’m looking at this setup… I think I could have avoided the hammer entirely. And maybe just used two clamps, pulling against one another in opposite directions, to free the hinge. That seems like a less intrusive, potentially easier approach. Something to try for next time.

Related:
Hardware Display
Hardware Cleaning, Door Work Continued