Door Hinges for DIY Dummies

Shim for door hinge

We just noticed that it had been a while since we featured some of the unconstrained freelancers who ply their trade at InfoBarrel.com. While the website is a classic example of a moribund content farm, with only a few people still writing there, almost all of their old content still lives in all its scruffy glory. Today's DotD nominee, then, is two-site dumbass Maxwell Payne, here to misinform his readers about "How to Adjust Hinges to Make Room Doors Close Flush."¹

Payne opens by explaining to his readers just what it means to have your "room doors close flush":

"If doors in your home are squeaky, crooked, not closing properly, or scraping the frame or floor you may have a door that isn’t flush..."

...which isn't what "flush" means, at least in our dictionary. What Max describes might be a door frame that is out of square, for instance. That's not to mention that squeaks usually mean that the hinges need some lubrication, not "adjustment." But let's read on... Payne barfed up 440 words to tell you how to adjust hinges, including the monumentally stupid closing line,

"Use a lubricant like WD-40 to keep the hinges loose and moving freely and to reduce squeaking."

No, Max, you don't spray in WD-40 (although you might drip in a bit). You use a lubricant like white lithium grease or even 3-in-1 oil, applied directly to the hinge pins. Spraying WD-40 on hinges makes a royal mess. But to get back to Payne's instructions, he tells his readers that they must

• Loosen the screws on the hinge plates that hold the hinges to the door frame.
• Carefully line up the hinges so they are level and the lower hinges are below the higher hinges.
• Move the hinges carefully up or down a few millimeters if the door hits the top or the floor.

Well, there's more (about 300 words more), but you get the idea. Apparently Payne is unfamiliar with the concept of hinge shims, has no notion of deepening a hinge mortise, never heard of planing a door edge. No, his solution is to "Move the hinges carefully up or down a few millimeters," and that's it!

Max, Max, Max: you don't move the hinges to adjust a door that's already in place! You may slip a piece of cardboard behind one or more hinges to tilt it in the frame, you may have to pull out a block plane to trim a little off the sides, but moving the hinges up or down? No way, José! and even less way if you don't include instructions to move the leaf on the door as well!

What an idiot. What a Dumbass of the Day!

¹ InfoBarrel has deleted all user-generated content and become a "green" website, but this post can still be reead by using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   infobarrel.com/How_to_Adjust_Hinges_to_Make_Room_Doors_Close_Flush

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