Accessories

Does the Job. . . .but
Overall I was able to make the jig work, but more flexibility/adjustment in the hinge depth would be a huge asset. I was refitting 12 doors on a renovation and the hinges were not set back as far as the Porter Cable Unit had them by default. Using there default location would have meant I would have had to move the stops on every door frame to accommodate the jig. The solution was simple; I just added a shim to decrease the hinge depth.

The nail hold down for the template is weak at best. I drilled a separate hole in the template frame and went to screws. The router would cause the frame to shift at times using the nails.

Overall the frame is great for quick and dirty short run jobs. If you do doors from time to time, consider the more expensive jigs.

good enough, but not robust
The template worked fine. It is not an heirloom and will last only for a job - I did 9 door slabs and its ready for the junk heap. I used a 1.5 HP router - which is a good size for this task. With this size router, the guide is just stable enough. The door should be vertical for the cuts. I made a simple jig out of 2x4's and used my knee to stablize. I figure cutting for three hinges took about five minutes per door. Get a centering punch for drilling the screw holes.

Pros: Very simple and intuitive to set up. The cuts looked factory done. The price is equivalent to the router bit alone.

Cons: Came with two nails - thats "one" hinge cut! After you pry the nails from the door and move to next hinge the nails are exhausted. I found 1.25 inch brads worked well. Even then, my template has pieces broken off and looks like it has gone through a war.

Door Hinge Template
The door hinge template worked well but had a couple of issues.
1. I would recommend a jig to hold the door or a second person.
2. I set the width of the door on the jig and I still needed to chisel out further back into the door for the hinge to work properly.

Good news -- The template allowed for over 95% of the area to be removed with the router at the correct depth!!! Then, only minor areas needed to be chiseled out. In addition, the template came with the router bit -- bonus for some "like me" who are router challenged.

Overall, I gave the product 5 stars...

Good for the homeowner.
I saw this on Amazon and decided to buy it at a local tool store. The price was about the same. I thought that it was a bit expensive for a plastic template, two nails, and plastic pins, but I am using someone's great idea, getting convenience, and saving time. Everything worked fine. I was replacing hollow core doors with used solid wood doors we got from the ReStore, a place for used house and construction materials. The router bit and template cut a professional looking mortise, better than I can do anytime with a chisel. You have to be pretty accurate though when measuring the point where to mount the template or you will have to use a chisel make a minor adjustment. The hardest thing was to hang the heavy wood doors, but at least making the mortises were quick and easy. I highly recommend this tool.

Another thing, when we looked into getting new doors, not only did they charge for the door, but they also charged to cut the mortises in the door, which was more than the price of this tool. I have hung two doors so far and have one more to go, so this Porter Cable tool has already paid for itself.

Time Saver
I had to replace some door that had been destroyed by vandals. Whoever put these doors in used blanks and were inconsistent in the hinge spacing. Because the hinges had 1/4 radius corners and the homeowner was extremely fussy I did not want to spend hours with a chisel and knife and then not get the corners perfect so I bought the jig. It worked perfectly and was simple to use. I would rather have had a clamping system but the small double headed brads left holes so small that they were easy to fill and became unnoticeable. I did not have to do the jams so I do not know how accurate that would be but the door hinge mortises worked perfectly and took just minutes. For the money I would highly recommend it. If I had to do many doors I don't know but pretty much everything is pre-hung today.