hinges

[Sorvan]

As I've been looking at pictures of police boxes, I've been noticing the hinges on some of the telephone doors.


I've been doing some poking around on the web and found "pull apart" hinges (on marine websites) which look like this:


and thought that I could theoretically cut them down a bit to be more like:


Has anyone else looked at doing this kind of thing?  I'm wondering if there's a better option.

These hinges are supposedly 2" tall.  Is that about what the hinges on the phone door are?  Anyone know?

Thanks,
Colin

[Mark]

he he!

I personally think that If I'd been trying to use a police post (complete with auto-closey-thing) I'd get pretty p'ed off with the door keep shutting, so maybe the got 'accidentally' broken by miffed bobbies?

Sorry Sorvan, I get what you mean now!

I don't think they were originally meant to be angled butt-hinge types. I think it's just a case of the hinges being old with a combination of my bad photography and over-painting!

Also, the door at Crich opens an closes quite freely, but only with physical help. If left it just stays open (Have you altered the gravity settings Scarfy?). When I next go down, I'll have a closer look at these hinges and report back.

The accuracy of our builds "hinge" on it!

(Sorry!)

[Scarfwearer]

Great find!
Um, which marine websites?

Crispin

[Sorvan]

Well, the cheapest place I found was Seattle Marine & Fishing Supply Company seamar.com
Finding the info on their web site isn't the easiest - to see the pictures you have to download the hardware catalog from: http://www.seamar.com/pdf/

They have three different types, and left & right varieties of each:
Seadog Take-Apart Hinge (brass) (cheapest, around US$5 each)
left - SDG204278
right - SDG204279

Seadog Take-Apart Hinge (stainless steel) (~US$7)
left - SDG205270
right - SDG205275

Perko Pull Apart Hinge (chrome plated bronze) (~US$40)
left - PRK149DP
right - PRK152DP

you can punch in the codes and find their actual prices.

Jamestown Distributors www.jamestowndistributors.com
has a different brand (and was where I stole the picture from).

Pull-A-Part Hinge (Motor Box Hinge) Brass Pair (~US$14)
left - ABI-300210
right - ABI-300110


Colin

[TG]

Blimey I've been looking for ages in every hardware catalogue for those hinges  - and they're nautical, just like the fresnel lamp - Do you think our Gilbert (Mackenzie Trench) might have had a Navy background or something?
And here are a couple of UK links for them
http://www.marine-hardware.co.uk/acatalog/Sea_Screw_Catalogue_Osculati_Catches___Hinges_141.html
Stainless steel
http://www.classicmarine.co.uk/asp/product.asp?product=242&cat=47&ph=cat&keywords=&recor=&SearchFor=&PT_ID
Slightly different Brass one
TG

Hey, if you see this Dematerialiser - did you consider 'Gilbert' for the Baby? That would have been a nice homage   

[ironageman]

Nice find - I've been looking out for this sort of thing too and could only find 4" ones.

The Barnet-style hinges must have been standard ones at the time that the box was built - you see identical hinges on old domestic metal-framed windows sometimes.

[Sorvan]

Well, while I'm at it, I was looking at the interrior pictures, and am guessing that the catch at the top of the window:

Is something like this

... a cupboard catch from (you guessed it) a marine catalog (www.seamar.com again).  There are lots of different styles of cupboard catches out there, but since none of the pictures I've seen are anywhere near clear about this detail, I just picked one.

Colin

[ironageman]

Very like it but with a pull-loop, I think... (Mark'll know; I think he took that picture.)*

How do you get pictures on that website? It's only giving me text...



*EDIT: Oh, no he didn't, it was UKWookie.

[Sorvan]

You've got to download the pdf catalog pages from: http://www.seamar.com/pdf/
I did a screencapture of the page with the cupboard catch and cropped & rotated it in photoshop.

Colin

[Mark]

Cool hinges Sorvan, nice find.

Can't remember if I've posted this one of the hinge on the Crich box before or not, so better safe than sorry
[noIMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/Mark7081/th_PhonePanelHinge.jpg[/img]
I've found some clearer (sort of) pictures of the window catches.
[noIMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/Mark7081/th_WindowCatchFront.jpg[/img]
[noIMG]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/Mark7081/th_WindowCatchProfile.jpg[/img]
This one had been taken off one of the windows (not by me!) so thought a photo shoot was needed

[Sorvan]

Thanks Mark!!

I hadn't seen those before.

I figured the hinge wouldn't be the same, but I haven't spotted anything better than the one I pictured earlier in this post.

The latch though...

It's a transon window latch.
(picture stolen from: http://www.vandykes.com/product/02016234/)

Colin

[Mark]

Perfect! Another nice find!

[Sorvan]

Are the hinges on the telephone door cut at an angle?  If so, is that all that keeps the telephone door closed when not in use, or is there some other mechanism that's not pictured?

Thanks,
Colin

[ironageman]

Nice! A little googling finds that these seem to be called 'fanlight catches' in the UK.

[ironageman]

Sorry, Sorvan, my almost-synchronous post obscured your question. I used to think that there wasn't much holding the telephone door closed, hence its un-closed-ness here:

But actually I think that the catch had simply broken on the Barnet box.

You can see one of those sprung-ball-bearing catches on pictures of the 1920s Met box.
and I think that these were on (some or all of) the metal-framed telephone doors too.

Some, at least, of the Tardis-style police pillars had door-closing springs.

Perhaps Mark has a nice picture...?