Dampened hinge assembly

A dampened hinge assembly comprising a male leaf and a female leaf, the female leaf comprising spaced apart first and second end barrels coaxially rotating with respect to a central barrel of the male leaf therebetween, an axial shaft fixed to the second end barrel of the female leaf at a proximal end of the axial shaft, the axial shaft having a distal helicoidally threaded spindle, a compression gear having a helicoidally threaded bore matching the helicoidal thread of the spindle, the compression gear having external longitudinal threading matching interior longitudinal threading of the central barrel wherein the helicoidal threading between the leaves causes the compression gear to displace towards the first end barrel when the leaves move into alignment and towards the second end barrel when the leaves move out of alignment and wherein the first end barrel engages a removable end closure having an axial bore such that:

• the removable end closure can be removed in use for the installation of an elongate end-of-range soft closure compression strut within the bore in use for bearing against a central distal bearing face of the compression gear to act between the removable end closure and the compression gear across an end-of-range soft closure relative rotation offset range between the leaves;
• and wherein the compression gear defines a peripheral distal bearing face and the removable end closure defines an oppositely facing peripheral bearing face such that the removable end closure can be removed in use for the installation of a soft closure helicoidal compression spring coaxially with respect to the axial bore to act between the peripheral distal bearing face and the oppositely facing peripheral bearing face across a soft closure relative rotation offset range between the leaves, the soft closure offset range between the leaves being greater than the end-of-range soft closure offset range between the leaves.