Woodhaven 8668 Jig for SOSS 218 Invisible Hinge Mortise Installation, Hidden Hinge Install Template, Made in The USA

I love this jig and I use it for various purposes it is durable and well made jig

Design does not fit my application. Needed it to install the hidden hinges that I purchased from Amazon. Purchased three items to install these hinges, this does not work. Please have a human contact me via email or phone.

Works perfectly

This tool worked well... eventually. Right out of the box, the slots that capture the small horizontal rails (the ones that define the smaller, deeper cut) were too narrow. The aluminum extrusions wouldn't fit. After a lot of filing they did. Next, I did a test route on a scrap piece. This resulting slot was ~ 1/32" to short. I probably could have pounded the hinge in but it would never come out again. Fortunately, I have access to machine tools. I machined the slot longer and now the fixture works fine. An awful lot of unnecessary work!

I purchased this router guide template from Woodhaven to aid in the installation of Soss hinges. The template was easy to use and provided a near perfect fit for the hinge. I think that the hinge installation without the guide template would have been rather difficult and not as tight and clean. I will definitely use this product again in the future. I used the template in a vise which made the job a lot easier. For safety sake I don't think that I would use it unless you have the template and the workpiece clamped together to a bench top or held in a vice.

This jig worked great. I've built similar jigs in my shop but for the degree of precision required for Soss hinges I figured this would be a worthwhile investment. It definitely was a good call. I was able to install 2 hinges in less than 15 minutes (including layout) with darn near perfect results. I was however building a very simple jewelry box. It would be nice if this jig had a center line mark or some other kind of reference. I originally planned to scribe a line at the end of the hinge (since there is not center line in the jig) but even that proved problematic since top plate is cut away at the edges. If I'm missing something I'd sure like to know as I plan to use this in more complicated setups. I'd buy this again in a heartbeat if it had some kind of reference marks. . . without them I'd still probably buy it but feel that its overpriced.

After a couple of test runs in scrap lumber I proceeded to cut accurate mortises without any problems. A very good product.

This soss hinge routing jig is excellent.....I machined 4 perfect sized mortises, each checked with a digital depth gauge, and verified snug fit to perimeter of hinge body. The average depth varied no more than .005 and the body width was dead on, as well as the total length and the radius at each end, for a nice snug fit. Where I found a problem, was that with assembled fold down solid maple fronts...(two hinges each)... is that the gap between the edge of the closed front and the face frame they were hinged from was not consistent. One side of a given door might be .055 - .060 (1/16"),while the other side or where the other hinge was might be as small as .010 - .015 (1/64"). I had purchased a quantity of these soss #101 hinges, so started exchanging them for the small opening gap, and found that it was the hinges that varied the gap when installed in the same mortise. In the end, to finish my project I had to shim the upper part of the hinge mortise,where the screws mount the hinge,(sometimes just in the frame,and other times both the frame and door panel) with .005,.010, or .020 self-adhesive UHMW (Ultra High Molecular Weight). This stuff is priceless for shimming everything from tools and jigs to hinges that don't quite live up to the task. I HIGHLY recommend these fixtures from woodhaven. You just may have to figure more time for shimming the hinge discrepancy itself.

Excellent jig to use for the SOSS hinges unfortunately the description does not indicate the precise router bit and collarthat are needed with your router to use the jig