To SW: I fully understand that your intent was to illustrate modeling techniques as opposed to designing a real-world product. However, not everyone going through your tutorials is going to be an experienced designer. They're going to assume you know what your talking about when you show them a configurable design. It would be better if you used tried and true design examples rather than grabbing something out of 'na-na land' to get your point across. A less experienced detailer might even put such a design in their library; heaven forbid!
SW's Teaching Bad Design Practice With Tutorial
To SW: I fully understand that your intent was to illustrate modeling techniques as opposed to designing a real-world product. However, not everyone going through your tutorials is going to be an experienced designer. They're going to assume you know what your talking about when you show them a configurable design. It would be better if you used tried and true design examples rather than grabbing something out of 'na-na land' to get your point across. A less experienced detailer might even put such a design in their library; heaven forbid!
I haven't seen the tutorial (I'm still on 2008) but it is not bad design practice to design a hinge that is not made from formed sheet metal. There's a limit to what a formed sheet metal design can handle in terms of load. Look at aircraft piano hinges, there are two basic styles -- an formed one as you describe and an extruded design that features a closed hole. This is for applications where a formed part would not be strong enough and a larger, thicker design would not fit.
I have seen (and have built) hinges from tubing and sheet stock welded together and this has been done on production aircraft for many years. Plastic hinges are common and are almost always of a closed design type or a "live hinge" for applications not requiring a long service life. A look through McMaster-Carr's catalog will show you many hinge designs that fall outside of the formed variety. It's not unusual to design a hinge using something other than a formed part, it good design practice given the loads and materials being used. And it's a perfectly valid teaching example IMHO........Bill