Carbon Hinges & Swinging Doors

Here's a little tour of the process I used for making my composite hinges and doors.  My favorite feature is the locking mechanism.  I spent a lot of time thinking about this design, and I'm pretty proud of the result.  

My objectives were as follows:

• Utilize swinging doors, rather than hatch boards.
• Make doors tightly stackable for storage.
• Avoid any protruding large latches or handles.
• Include a comfortable top step for sitting in companionway.
• Be lockable.

I surfaced some PVC core down to the desired thickness, bagged a panel, and cut both the outline, and the core rebate on the CNC, using a Rockler bit designed for cutting keyholes.

I'm getting smarter with fixturing.  To machine the lip on the doors themselves, I hammered an RBS batten into a milled trench in some MDF, and ran the router to get the desired profile, eliminating vibration and chaos.

For hinges, I bought some titanium tubing and rod from a place in Canada, as they had perfect sizing, and a webstore.

I wrapped carbon around the tube and clamped as shown.

To cut the hinges themselves, I went very deliberately and slowly with a jewelry saw that picked up years ago, but never found a use.  It took awhile, and I destroyed a few blades, but it worked great and the saw kerf was tiny.  Around the same time, I found a stainless trailer hitch lock, and press fit into a random old Fiberspar carbon tube.

To get everything aligned was tricky, but not impossible.  In this pic, one can see the full-length hinge pins, and copious amounts of masking tape to hold things still.  I'm also using some flash tape to keep the pins clean, and a few playing cards form the backside, as they are the world's best shim stock.

Wow!  It's almost like a boat down here.

While I didn't bag the carbon over the top of the hinges, I did get some structure here to add strength.

This seems promising.  I'll drop another post with a video showing the function.