Making an Oak Breakfast Bar
So what I am ostensibly doing is making a breakfast bar for our living room. The room has a really great view, and we wanted to make the most of it by replacing our current grotty windowsill, with a nice oak one. Something that had a fold up bar bit so we can sit on stools (which will give a better view out) to eat, drink and think.
What makes this project interesting, is the fold up mechanism. It is an integrated wooden hinge. Although the hinge pin itself is made from some 10mm scrap metal bar I had from the skipped floor scrubber (most of which was made into a the huge Disc Sander). The drop leaf support is made from some upcycled car parts, namely some crankshaft mounts and a suspension swing arm.
In the video I give some incidental tips on gluing up, making accurate and repeated slots with the router and a few other tips.
Below you can see the basic mechanism of the wooden hinge. It requires either an indent relief or a round over (or both) to be able to move. The round over will be visible on the outside edges, so my preference was for a small round over and an indent relief. I used this little block to check I was getting the clearance needed for a 90 degree twist. The small round over was made with the router and for the indent I used a router followed by some old fashioned chiselling.
