Porter-Cable 59370 Door Hinge Template

by Porter-Cable

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Use this affordable, time saving template kit to hang one or more doors with any 1/4 inch collet router. Easy to set up; just mark the hinge location, tack the template in place with the included brads, and make the perfect, factory quality looking cut. The 59370 Door Hinge Template includes 8 hinge sizes from 2-1/2 inch to 6 inch and five door sizes from 1-3/8 inch to 2-1/2 inch.

From the Manufacturer

Porter-Cable 59370 Door Hinge Template

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 8 x 16 inches ; 6.4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004TI3O
• Item model number: 59370
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #16,296 in Home Improvement (See Top 100 in Home Improvement)
  • #14 in Home Improvement > Power & Hand Tools > Power Tool Accessories > Router Accessories > Templates

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars WARNING: Design changed!, April 27, 2005

By 

J. Frazee "GR8 88's" (South Salem, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Porter-Cable 59370 Door Hinge Template (Tools & Home Improvement)

This used to be a great little product. I had an old one that worked just fine until I broke it by accident. But when I bought a new one, I couldn't believe what they'd done - they've switched out the double-head nails for flat heads and there are no guide bushings like before. AND, the new flathead nails just barely clear the template thickness; nowhere near enough bite to hold it to the jamb while routing! How many thousandths of a cent did they save with this with this blockhead move? Rule #1: if it ain't broke, DON'T FIX IT.

38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gets the job done, July 5, 2002

By 

ebird (oak view, ca USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Porter-Cable 59370 Door Hinge Template (Tools & Home Improvement)

Give this template a four. Not meant for everyday use it's a little 'wobbly' when using a router bigger than 1 1/2 hp but gets the job done. For someone looking to put a few new doors up it's worth the price to get super clean mortises. Not well explained in the instructions is how to acheive a 1/4"' radial corner. The material shows how to do the 5/8" and a square. Maybe those smarter than me would instantly realize that a router bit like the one included could never cut a square but it took me a few minutes of scratching my head until I realized the square set up is the 1/4" set up too. You just chisel out the corners for the square.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointed, April 15, 2007

By 

Larzon "tool aficionado" (Tempe, AZ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Porter-Cable 59370 Door Hinge Template (Tools & Home Improvement)

I bought this template to speed up the process of replacing 8 doors in our house. The only good thing I can say about this product is that the included router bit is decent. Otherwise this hinge template was a waste of money and time. It has several flaws, most of which are attributable to the product being made poorly from injection-molded plastic.

1) Several "nubs" of flashing from the injection molding process stuck up at various heights from the surface upon which the router glides. I had to spend several minutes shaving these off with a sharp chisel so the router base could glide without hanging up on them or tilting as it rode up over one (but see next two items).

2) The ribs that formed the glide surface also had sharp edges (flashings) that rose above the surface, and these also had to be shaved down.

3) The tops of these ribs were not aligned in a plane, which was easy to confirm by sighting across it. That is, the structure was somewhat warped, meaning the router would hang up as it glided left to right. (This was after I had shaved off the sharp edges.)

4) The thickness was nonuniform, perhaps because of item #3, and so the depth of cut was always deeper on the right side. This was readily apparent upon fitting the hinge into the mortise--the upper edge was flush while the lower edge stood out.

5) The device was difficult to align. There are cutouts so you can see the edge of the door, but the template had enough curvature to it such that these were useless (misaligned). Instead you had to eyeball the left/right, fore/aft, and rotation of the template according to your layout lines, which are 1/16" inside the edges of the template. (The router bit has 1/16" offset from the bearing to the cutting flute.) You can carefully layout additional lines 1/16" from the future mortise but this takes extra care and time. Then, when you think you have the template in the right spot, you hammer in the nails at each end, and pray that the thing did not shift due to the hammering. On several occasions one of the nails would find a softer spot in the grain and pull itself and the whole template over.

6) The nails were insufficient to hold down the template. There just isn't enough holding power with two tiny nails, and the template rocked perilously fore/aft. I had to be very careful in holding the router down to prevent the template from tipping up and away from the edge of the door.

7) The inserts that determine the length of the mortise were flimsy. They were difficult to snap into place, and in spite of careful tapping during installation, one of the tabs broke off immediately. (Fortunately just enough of it remained to align the insert.)

8) The inserts were malformed. Upon making the first mortise I discovered the length was nearly 1/16" too long, and the radius didn't quite match the hinges. (These were brand new hinges, exactly 3 1/2" long.) Although these were the correct inserts for that hinge, the radius was not constant. I.e. part of the curve matched the hinge, but then there were noticeable gaps at the ends of each curve. I ended up using 4 thicknesses of masking tape on each insert to size the pocket to length, and similarly I filled in part of the curve on each insert to match the hinge radius properly.

In the time I spent messing around to make this thing work, I could have used a scrap of MDF to make a much better template from scratch. Don't waste your money on this product unless you you have time to burn and you really can't afford a real template. If you have only one or two doors to install, you should make the mortises by hand, the old fashioned way. I tried this on one mortise to see if I could make the curves adequately, and it was not that hard, it just took some time. I would not want to do this 16 times however. Ultimately the hinge template saved me time, but this savings was hard fought and frustrating. This template went straight into the trash when I was finished with it.