Standards & Finishes > Weights of Material

Our standard heavy strap hinges are made of 3/16” thick mild steel. The reason is simple; we’ve never seen a hinge made of this heavy material fail. While we’ve seen lots of 1/8” thick hinges fail, there are thousands of others that have functioned perfectly well. It’s not just about weight of material – the failures we see often stem from design flaws…… insufficient clearance between hinge pin and barrel encourages rust. Hinges and pintles rust together, along comes Mr. Painter who pulls the shutter open and the hinges bend or crack. They weren’t too light to hang the shutters; they just couldn’t stand the leverage and break the rust. We account for such with our lighter hinges – we’d never sell hinges that wouldn’t function properly without failure.

We provide this listing to give you an idea of what you’re buying from us and as a gauge when other makers/vendors refer to metal thickness in gauge (GA.). If they don’t mention hinge thickness, ask. Skimping on material is how a lot of imported stuff gets so cheap.

Insert table of weights, decimal equivalent, different materials, add shear and tensile strength.