Door Hinge Shims - for aligning doors in their frames - for 3 1/2" & 4" door Hinges

Many door frames are not square, or the door hinges are not mounted correctly. This causes the door to not fit evenly in its frame. Often, a door will rub on the frame near the top on the latch side, making a rubbing squeal and/or making it harder to fully close the door. In many cases, this can be easily adjusted by placing an angled shim between the door frame and the hinge plate. These shims can move the location of the hinge pin to pull the door away or push it towards the frame in a specific area of the frame.

For example, suppose a door is too close to the door frame, and rubbing near the top, opposite from the top hinge. If you wanted to pull the door away from the frame in that area, say by ~2mm, you could shift the location of the hinge pin to the side by ~2mm by installing the 2mm shim behind the hinge plate that screws onto the frame. The shim would be installed by orienting the “+” (thicker) edge in the hinge cut-out, away from the hinge (the “-” or thinner side would be closer to the hinge pin). The hinge plate then pivots, like a teeter-totter, pulling the hinge pin, and consequently the upper portion of the door, away from the frame.

If you want to move the door closer to the frame, opposite of the hinges, then install the desired thickness of shim(s) in the same location, but with the “-” (thinner) side away from the hinge pin.

If a door frame is out of square by quite a bit, there is tolerance in many door hinges to stack multiple shims, up to ~3mm of hinge pin movement before the hinge plates start hitting each other and inhibiting proper closure of the door. It is also possible to have shims on the top and bottom of a door, with opposite orientations, so that as the top hinge is pulled, the bottom hinge is pushed, or visa versa.

NOTE:     It might take a few different attempts and shim thicknesses to find just the right amount of movement.

NOTE:     When adding shims to hinges, you may need to repair, or tighten up the existing screw holes, or use longer screws to re-secure the hinge to the frame.

These shims come in two sizes, for 3-screw/3 ½" and 4-screw 4" hinges, which are very common in the U.S., and there are likely metric equivalents throughout the world. They work with most of the common hole patterns for these two sizes. The shims come in three thicknesses (1mm, 1.5mm & 2mm), which should be sufficient for most door alignments, especially if combined or doubled up.