So I've been asked to make a collar different to my usual kind which is basically a hasp and staple set up. I've been playing with the idea of using hinges for ages but unless they are quite thick then I've got concerns about how robust they would be. Anyway, I checked out the Lewton-Brain hinge book and thought that a cold rolled hinge would do the job. For the record, I'm using silver wire which is 5mm x 1.7mm. I need to make the fitting so it and the collar as a whole is very strong and robust, so I'm avoiding soldering as much as possible.
Now the ones in the book didn't look like they were made from very thick sheet, so as much as I wanted to make a nice parallel roll at the ends and then cut out the knuckles, I couldn't get it right. So in the end I pierced out the tabs and then annealed (which kind of counteracts one of the points of doing cold rolled hinges) and managed to get them roughly into shape (after cutting the slots a bit longer). It worked in principle but didn't look very elegant because I managed to really mangle the metal.
So, if I want to make it a nice tight hinge I need to find a way to get a good parallel roll in the silver which is not so enormous that it makes creating a hinge pin unworkable. Or I need to work out how long a tab needs to be to pierce them out but I can't figure out or find out the maths for it. I think it has to do with aspect ratio but after looking online, I can't find out the formula.
Anyone with any advice on how to tackle this?
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