Nice adjustable hinges?

[Thrashsmith]

Hi folks, I've just been given the green light on another pair of gates but to get the quote down to a figure the client was happy with I've had to make some small changes, including changing from making hinges to using pre-made adjustable ones, as per the attached pic.
Call me pretentious but I'm really not a fan of them, especially next to wrought ironwork. Does anyone know of a nicer looking type of adjustable hinge on the market? If not I might just make some square nuts to replace the hex head nuts so they blend in a bit better & file down any visible thread.

 

[cumbriasteve]

I have used various hinges from this firm before, not sure if anything will suit you though.

http://www.dciron.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?cat=0&q=hinges

 

[steve t]

no matter what you do to dicky them up they'll still look a bit naff, think id put a hand made hinge on and swallow the price, no point in doing something that's going to annoy you everytime you see it, the type of work you do should have a premium price and to compromise on a daft thing like hinges is silly. I tried in the past to do bespoke forgework and came up against this time and time again, couldn't get the budget the job really needed so ended up compromising on so much to get work I was doing unique forged jobs for not much more than straight fabbed jobs, don't fall into that trap, aim high and youll get there.

 

[cumbriasteve]

^^^^ I do agree, if they don't have the budget for your work you should not have to reduce your quality, obviously we all have to earn a living so that has to be considered too.

 

[Hitch]

We use this type on the odd occasion we make a decorative gate.

 

[cumbriasteve]

Bit more time so will write more:

When I started making gates and railings etc I thought the more orders on my books I had proved my success, I kept my price under the other local suppliers and work flooded in.

After a while I realised I had made a lot of fairly nice stuff but nothing I felt really proud of and certainly nothing that stretched my skills.

I upped my prices, the orders reduced by 25% but I was making more money, I was then at a level I liked the work but still wanted to do work with the wow factor.

I upped my prices again and the orders reduced even more but after a couple of months I was making a lot of money for a fraction of the product quantity, people were coming looking for me because they had seen the work and wanted the same, price was a secondary consideration.

It's not as easy now, anyone with a shed and welding set can buy some fantastic pre formed products, put them together and produce a gate that virtually matches anything the skill of a smithy can do.

Anyways..that's just my take on pricing and penny pinching customers

 

[Bill Edwards]

That linked to above might be useful.

What about threading the inside of the gate (or welding the nuts inside it, same effect) so you don't have to have any nuts visible?

 

[Hitch]

If you thread the gate frame, it makes it very difficult to adjust once they are hung. Not a massive deal on a smll gate, but on a big heavy set it would make them very hard work to hang and adjust.
What I normally do, is hang them, adjust to get the true and looking right, then trim off any excess thread on the hinge, usually leaving a couple of thread for any future adjustments. Cant say they look too obtrusive like that.

 

[Thrashsmith]

Thanks for the replies folks. I think what I'll end up doing is seeing how I'm doing for time and if I'm ahead of schedule then I'll probably make some hinges, but if not then I'm not working for free. I have only just started quoting sensibly and I'm not slipping back into doing loads of extra work for free...been there, got the t-shirt, had the depression from borrowing money to afford food, nearly gone out of business from doing it.
I had actually been thinking I should make a flypress jig of some kind to help speed up hinge making, maybe this job will be the catalyst to actually doing it...

 

[Bill Edwards]

Good plan, IF you get the time.
But working for free rarely pays...

 

[Thrashsmith]

I squeezed in a couple hours at the workshop today. Need to tidy these up a load & am also going to add on an extra bit (too complicated to explain but will be obvious when final pics come) but even in their ragged & unfinished state they're doing the trick. Some quick experimentations with scrap 30 x 6mm flat. Using 20mm round as a mandrel because I'll probably use Brundle's rectangular hinge plates with 19mm pins.