Re-using ’60s 3/8ths” rabbeted cabinet doors
BeveledEdge
| Posted in General Discussion on
I’m redoing my kitchen adding onto the existing cabinets. I would like to re-use the cabinet doors, but convert them to shaker style but don’t know if there is a hinge solution that would work for this situation but don’t know how feasible this would be.
The cabinet doors are very heavy duty plywood, each layer is very thick.
The inset edge is rabbeted 3/8th thick of the 3/4″ dooor slab. The hinges are on the outside but I would like to get ones that I can conceal.
Replies
Hinges aren't a problem. You can get euro style hinges for your kitchen, as long as you have the skills to fit them.
Making your existing doors into a "Shaker style" would involve applying a facade -- a frame of @1/4" thick, @2-1/4" wide on the outside face of the doors. The problem is the quarter round moulding on the doors. It's going to show around the edge. You could turn them into inset doors by first ripping the quarter round edges off, but you would almost certainly end up with doors that are too small for the opening.
Any alterations I can think of require a lot of time and work per door. And you'd end up with an obviously jury rigged solution. If it were me, I'd make new doors. That many doors is a lot of work, but the new hinges will likely cost more than the wood. You can also buy new doors, but they wouldn't be cheap, and you likely have as many different sizes as you do doors.
You could re-use your plywood doors to make the panels by cutting them to size and rabet the back down to 3/8 ´´ . Then you build frames and use euro hinges.
As stated above, you could reuse the plywood to make the panels for a shaker style frame. It's gonna be a bit of work on your part as you'll have to rip them and rabbet them to fit the panels. This obviously requires you have a table saw, dado stack, and the capability to make your frames (which could be done again with the table saw and dado stack) or with a cope and stick router bit set if you've got a router and table for it.
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