Custom Hinge with Retained Pin

This customer came to Ajax with a die-cast hinge, made in Europe, which had a retained hinge pin. We figured out how to produce the custom hinge with retained pin as a progressive metal stamping. We created a prototype with no hard tooling expense, then produced working samples that performed flawlessly in the product. From there, we built progressive tools for high-volume production at a fraction of the cost of a die-cast hinge. That was the start of a 25-year relationship that’s still going strong.

Over the years, we added a countersunk screw hole to automatically locate the position of the hinge, and we’ve switched to zinc and clear to meet European ROHS requirements. We now produce more than 100,000 custom hinges every year for a whole family of the customer’s products.

• Product Name, Custom Barrel Hinge
• Project Scope, Developed progressive stamping solution to replace a die-cast hinge with retained pin feature.
• Design Work, Rapid prototyping; working samples; custom tooling; material and finishing re-design; manufacturing design
• Product Description, Custom Barrel Hinge with Retained Pin
• Applied Processes, Engineering; design; material selection; tooling; prototyping
• Tightest Tolerance, .003
• Material Thickness, .089″
• Material Used, Cold Rolled Steel
• Material Finish, Zinc and clear
• Industry for Use, Consumer Appliance
• Volume, 100,000+ annually
• Lead Time, Kanban
• Delivery Location, International
• Standards Met, ROHS