I've seen a lot of references to shy hingebacks on here and I have to say that my experience seems to differ. The hingeback I've had the longest, Simon, is is always out of his shell, even when picked up, and will walk over to see what I'm up to if he notices me near his enclosure (inside or out). He interacts with my 2 year old daughter even better, I think because she doesn't loom over him as much as I do. My second oldest male, Sam, took a lot longer to get acclimated (1.5 years), but is now fairly outgoing as well. For example, his beak ended up getting a really weird wear pattern, kinda looks like he only chews using the sides of his mouth, so I wanted to do a little dremmeling on the front. (He wasn't having any problems with it, but it really bugged me to see it that way.) I didn't even have to hold his head- he stuck it right out and let me slowly remove material for a 5-10 minutes. He did stop cooperating before I finished removing everything I wanted to, but I can't blame him. I was working really slow and getting a little bored myself. One of the new girls I just got, Chew Toy, is also fairly adventurous. She's right on track with Simon's socialization. Helen is my only stereotypically shy tort. Now, that isn't to say that they can't be spooked, because it does happen, but they usually recover pretty quickly.
How about everyone else?
How about everyone else?