Choosing an cabinet hinge requires you to understands the concept of overlay. The overlay is the measurement of how much of a cabinet door will cover the opening in the cabinet. If you choose the wrong overlay for your cabinet doors, your cabinets may end up with their doors sitting crooked or may not align proper with the cabinet frame.
There is alot different styles of cabinets. Most cabinets, however, are either face frame cabinets or frameless cabinets. Face frame cabinets has a wooden border around the cabinet opening.
How to Choose a Cabinet Hinge
Frameless cabinets do not contains such a wooden border. A full overlay hinge allow a cabinet door to cover the entire edge of a cabinet opening. A half overlay hinge allow two cabinet doors to share a center divider.
The type of hinge that you choose for your cabinet doors must match the style of your cabinets so that the hinge will clear the mounting surface of the cabinet. The cup hole is a circular pocket that is drilled into the back of a cabinet door. The size of the cup hole must match the hinge that you will attach to the door.
If the cup hole is smaller than the hinge, the door will end up looking crooked. If the cup hole is larger than the hinge, the cabinet hinge will lose strength at the mounting point for the door. A standard cup hole is thirty-five millimeter in diameter and thirteen millimeters in depth.
Clip-on hinges are generally the best choice for cabinet hardware. A hinge that clips on and off the door save the installer time during installation. It also makes it easier to make adjustment to the door later on.
The opening angle for a hinge is the angle at which the cabinet door will open. If your cabinet is near a wall, a ninety-five degree opening angle is best. For most other cabinets, however, a wider opening angle will allow for better access to the items that are to be stored behind the cabinet door.
Corner cabinets may require a wider opening angle for one door to clear another when opening the cabinet door. The opening angle will also determine how a cabinet door rest when left in an open position. The weight of the cabinet door will play a role in the number of hinges that you need to install on your cabinet.
If the door is tall, such as for a pantry door, it will be heavier than a door for a standard base cabinet. Heavy doors requires more hinges to distribute the weight of the door. Two hinges are generally the minimum required for a door that is small and light in weight.
For tall cabinet doors or heavy doors, though, you will need to use three or four hinge. Most moddern hinges allow for the alignment of a cabinet door to be adjusted once the door is installed. Concealed hinges, for example, allow a person to adjust the door in three different direction with a screwdriver.
Using a screwdriver, a person can raise the door, lower the door, or shift the door sideways. The door can also be adjusted to change the distance between the door and the cabinet face. These adjustments are generally needed because a cabinet may shift slightly due to the items that are loaded into the cabinet.
Soft close hinges contains a hydraulic damper that allows the door to open and close smooth without slamming into the cabinet. A hinge that includes such a feature will reduce the amount of wear on both the hinge and the cabinet face. Standard spring hinges do not have a hydraulic component to allow for smooth opening and closing of the cabinet door.
Standard spring hinges will cost less money then hinges that are soft close hinges. Corner cabinets require specialized hardware because their shape is slightly different than the shape of standard cabinets. Blind corner cabinet hinges use an offset arm to allow the door to swing past an adjacent cabinet door without colliding with that other cabinet door.
Carousel units use a rotating piece of hardware instead of individual hinge to permit access to the items stored in the corner cabinet. Many cabinet designs requires specific hardware to accommodate the features of the cabinet. For example, cabinets with glass doors use clamps rather than cup holes.
Handleless cabinet doors require push-to-open hardware to allow the door to swing open. For doors that are very tall or heavy, continuous hinges are used. The hinge must match the cabinet style, the door size, and how the cabinet is to be used in the kitchen.
