A customer wants me to convert her old cabinet door hinges to Euro hinges. The doors are simple, painted, slab doors with a beveled edge. I think they’re MDF (or something similar) but it’s hard to tell since they’re fairly heavily painted.
I’m concerned about how well the Euro hinges will work since the bevel leaves the hinge cup hole open on one side. I made this mockup and the hinge feels very solid, but I’m wondering if anyone has any history with doing something like this.
Replies
Dave,
First of all it will work, even though it feels scary.
Second, if you have access to Blum's technical data, check and see how far in from the edge you can place the hinge. (All their data is for doors up to 23 mm thickness. You didn't give details on the thickness, whether they are full overlay, etc.) With the right combination of hinge type and mounting plate you can get pretty far away from the edge, maybe far enough to solve the problem. If you can't work it out from their data, it would be worthwhile to make some mock-ups to try this. Start with a 9 mm mounting plate and experiment. If you need a hand with this, give me the exact profile of the door and what position it needs to be in relation to the cabinet.
DR
Ring -
The doors are 3/4" thick and are overlay style. The actual amount of overlay is 1/4" on all sides. The mockup in my picture has the same bevel (~34*) and I centered the cup hole 11/16" from the outside (widest) edge. When I used a piece of 3/4" scrap to mockup the faceframe, I found that I could probably move the hole to 3/4" or 13/16" and still make it work.
If these were decent hardwood cabinets I would be more comfortable, but they're el-cheapo 70's era junk and I'm a bit concerned about durability. Fortunately, the customer understands the issue and isn't expecting a miracle. To add to the fun, she told me that she wanted granite countertops but when the granite company looked at her base cabinets they told her there was no way they would hold up.
Thanks for your input.
Dave,
I'll try tomorrow to find a reasonable solution.
Just to be clear - the 1/4" overlay you refer to is measured on the rear of the door, that is, the short side of the bevel, right?
DR
Here's another picture with the face frame mocked up to the door mock up. The hinge will be partially visible if you're looking at the door from the right angle.
Dave,
I hope I have understood correctly the parameters. If so, here is one way to solve the hinge mounting. As is often the case there are several solutions, this is one I came up with but there are certainly other combinations that might even be better.
Hinge is Blum 170 deg. full overlay Clip Inserta, part #71.6540 Since I have a Blum drilling machine I use the Inserta type hinges only, but the same hinge with screw mountings is part #71.6500
Baseplate is Blum Cruciform 2-part plate, 9 mm high, part #175H9190
The edge of the 35 mm hole for the hinge cup is exactly 3/16" in from the beveled corner, in other words - 7/8" from the corner to its center. See the photo "bevel03"
In closed position (photo "bevel01") you have 1/4" overlay . It doesn't matter what face frame you have, I just mocked up a double thickness of ply to represent the cabinet.
In open position (photo "bevel02") the hinge motion is stopped at about 125 deg because of the extruding bevel. Seems to be a small price to pay for solving the drilling problem.
best of luck
DR
Ring -
Looks like a great solution!! I was thinking along similar lines (mixing hinges and plates) but didn't come up with anything.
Unfortunately, the customers cabinets have face frames and your plan is for frameless carcasses. I could probably install some blocks behind the face frame to bring the mounting plates out flush with the face frame, but this is a pretty low budget job (she's renovating a condo and has already run well over her budget).
I'm going to poke around on the internet and see what kind of hinges I can find that will work. Thanks for your help. I owe you one, ok? - lol
Of course you can block whatever thickness you need to be flush with the face frames. It shouldn't change the price, in fact, it might even make it easier for you to use a long block the whole height of the cabinet (not for each hinge individually) and predrill for the baseplates before you screw the blocks in place. You can put a screw underneath each baseplate so they will be invisible but accesible if needed.
DR
The way you have mounted the hinge makes it appear that the door bevel is on the inside face (the face that is hidden when the door is closed). Is that right? The bevel is usually on the outside face. If you drill a hole for the hinge the hinge will be visible when the door is closed - not good.
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