I am building a stand for an aquarium. It is built with 2″x2″ cherry legs. The legs come straight down and then curve out at 4 degrees. The curve is on the inside and the outside of the leg. The upper and lower rails have 20 degree arches and there will be doors that follow the inside curves of the frame.
The question is what kind of hinges should I use? Because the the door stile curves out at the bottom I can not use a standard hinge with a knuckle or it would also follow the curve.
I am thinking about barrel hinges. Any ideas? I have tried to attach a drawing of the stand but when I click the attach files button nothing happens. I can email anyone a PDF if you want to see a picture as I know my description is confusing, or maybe someone can tell me what I need to do to attach the file.
Thanks for any help.
Michael
Edited 4/18/2005 5:55 pm ET by MTBURTON
Replies
One thing to remember is that the hinge knuckles on a door must be in a vertical line. If they're not, the door is going to try to swing toward the position where it is lowest. That is, it may swing open or closed depending on which way your line is tilted, but it won't just stand in one position like a door should.
The only way you can hang a door on a curved stile is to have the hinge barrels on the same straight line, and what Jamie says about a vertical line is true. If you recess the doors to emhasize the line of the legs, and build out the stile to give a vertical joint between the door and stile, that would work and look good. This is one traditional solution.
If you MUST have a curved joint, I think you could work out a suitable arrangement with concealed "Euro" hinges of different offsets, depending on how severe your curves are. You'd still have to build out the interior a little bit toi put the pivots of the hinges in line, but I believe it could be done without too much trouble. I haven't done it myself, so no guarantees, but I have used Euro hinges plenty and it makes sense if your offsets are within the range of the hinges.Michael R
"You have to look for possibilities where there are none" Krenov
MT, You can use off-set pivot hinges which mount on the top and bottom of the door to get the pins in a plumb position. It sounds like the bottom one may be in from the edge a little which means that the part the door outside of that will be rotating back inside of the cabinet as it pivots around, so don't locate any shelves too close behind the doors to bind against.
If the top arch comes all of the way to the side, don't let that stop you from using these hinges. You can clamp the long arm of the hinge that gets mortised into the door in a vise, and grip the short leg with pliers and twist the short leg around to match the angle of rise in the edge of the door to get the pin plumb.
If the bottom of the doors curve out toward you like the side is curving out, the pivot point can be back from the edge, so long as it does not get located any further back and closer to the side than a 45 degree line from the corner of the opening. This would cause the front to bind against the edge of the opening as it pivots.
I hope this helps. If I misunderstood the situation, you can email me at [email protected]
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