I’m more of a carpenter/”breaktime”-poster, looking for a little advice on building my own kitchen cabs.
I’ve read everything I can find here and elsewhere and have decided to go for the hybrid euro/faceframe construction method. The cabs will have 1-1/2″ face frames so that the sides are flush with the face frame. My wife and I really like the look of the face frames and inset doors, but I know my skills will require the adjustability of cup hinges to make this come out looking half-way decent.
What I can’t figure out is whether the euro hinges for inset doors will require some kind of door stop to keep the door flush with the face frame (on the side opposite the hinges). Or can this be adjsted for in the hinge? I’ve been looking at Blum, but I guess there are some other brands too?
Thanks,
-Rich
Replies
You will need a stop. In general, Euro hinges "overclose," and rely on a stop to prevent them from going past the closed position.
-Steve
Yes, the self-closing hinges will overclose, so a stop is required. Also available are hinges without the selfclosing spring. These require a catch of some sort, but I find the action much nicer this way. The self-closers seem to want to dominate my hand's conversation with the door.
Something else you may want to consider is insetting the doors slightly (1/8") from the face frame. I do this often with standard euro look cabinets. Given that plywood is not all that flat nowadays, having the slight inset allows for a margin of error that will cover the slight irregularities. Standard euro hinges will allow this inset, but not by much. Do a mockup to fully understand how to install the hinges. This method of installation is not covered in the instructions.
Hello Rich,
I have used Blum inset hinges on a number of occasion and they do not have the feature you are looking for. You may be interested by Gibson's kitchen cupboards article in FWW #185 where he states:
"For door catches I use 1⁄4-in.-dia. rare-earth magnets from Lee Valley (http://www.leevalley.com). They’re very forgiving to install."
He too used inset doors, but did not use Euro hinges though.
Regards,
Senomozi
You can just use standard magnetic catches. They mount like a stop. I use two, one top and one bottom on flush inset doors.
Beat it to fit / Paint it to match
Thanks, everyone. That's what I was afraid of. Stops aren't a huge deal, but I was hoping to avoid them. The rare earth magnet idea is an interesting one. I have the article around here somewhere...-Rich
It would be tricky to get a rare earth magnet to work here. A magnet works with a free-swinging door because there is essentially no counteracting force. The door can "settle in" on a moderate-strength magnet, swinging slightly back and forth until the oscillations damp out from friction and air resistance. Opening the door requires pulling against only that moderate force.
When a spring-closed door closes, the springs ensure that the door is moving pretty quickly at the point where the magnet would have to "catch" the door before it swings too far. (If it swings too far, the magnet will "lose" the door.) So the magnet has to be very strong, and then, of course, you risk making the door too hard to open.
-Steve
Among the various other alternatives, Blum makes a soft-closing stop which is very easy to install and solves this problem neatly.
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?id=1&lang=e
I'll also add my thumbs up regarding the Blumotion dampers/stops. They work very well, although they do intrude into the door opening. (They also make dampers that mount to the hinges themselves, but those wouldn't solve the inset door stop problem.)
-Steve
Edited 11/8/2007 10:40 am ET by saschafer
Steve, I am familiar with the hinge dampers also. But the separate damper/stop has 2 neat advantages:
1. You can effectively adjust the amount of cushioning by where you mount it. If it's along the cabinet's top or under a shelf, it needn't be all the way at the far end from the hinges. A mid-position will give a stronger closing, etc.
2. In some applications you can drill a 10mm hole (for instance in an interior shelf) and just use the tube part of the stop, without its base. Very neat application used this way.
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?id=1&lang=e
The Blumotion things sound interesting. I'll be looking them up. I'll caution anyone about to use rare earth mags for stop/catches. They have a tendency to collect dirt...... iron particles are everywhere it seems. I've got them on the sink cab doors in my own kitchen and a black streak has resulted. Perhaps I made the error of mounting them at the bottom of the doors where dirt tends to reside. At the tops, who would see them besides the dog? They do have a sweet action and despite the dirt issue, I use them.
Do you use SOS or other steel wool scrubbing pads in the kitchen? That might be where the iron is coming from.
-Steve
Take a magnet outside and drag it through the garden dirt. You'll find it will have attracted some iron stuff. I'll blame my dog and my wife for having brought it into our kitchen...... mostly the dog.
You must have more metallic soil than we do around here. I just tried it with a 1" diameter rare earth magnet and got nothing.
-Steve
I am building something similar to Gibson's cabinets for our laundry room. I was planning on a rare earth magnet on the stiles of the door near the top and bottom, with another magnet in the face frame. Is this the usual procedure. What works well to secure them, or is a variety available with a hole for a screw? What is the maximum gap that will work effectively?
Edit: I should note that I am not using euro-style hinges, but something visible.
Edited 3/1/2008 5:20 pm ET by tuolumne7
Lee Valley has screw-mounted magnet cups you can use with rare earth magnets:
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=2&p=42348&cat=1,42363
What I've done in the past is bore a hole slightly larger than the diameter of the magnet, glue the magnet to the bottom of the hole, then cover with a matching wood plug. The distance from the top of the magnet to the outer surface (i.e., the thickness of the plug plus any air gap between the plug and the magnet) is around 3/32".
You don't need two magnets; a steel disc (Lee Valley also has those) will work fine as the mating half. Using two magnets increases the force a little, but does not double it.
Maximum working distance depends on the diameter of the magnet and how much force you need to keep the door closed. I aim for no more than 1/8", but you could go higher with a large magnet. Note that the attractive force drops off dramatically with distance, so there is a very narrow "sweet spot" range where the attraction is strong enough but not too strong. You need to experiment to determine where that sweet spot is in your particular application.
-Steve
Thanks for the link. My gaps should be around 1/16" or so, so I may use your plug idea.
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