Inset door margins and hinges

[Gene Davis]

If you are building FF cabs with inset doors, and using one of the Amerock partial wrap hinges like this one sold here by Thermwood, what door margin (inset) are you using?

http://www.woodworkerswholesale.com/Ame ... 0tb-wi.htm

[Brian Widiker]

Hi Gene
According to one of my suppliers it has a minimum door gap of 1/16" with
horizontal adjustment plus or minus 1/16".Hope this helps.
Brian

[Vince Lisanti]

Gene,

I think your best bet would be to order a set of those hinges and mock up a door and frame in your shop so you know your exact margins. There is almost zero adjustability with those hinges in an inset application without making your margins unpleasingly large. I have learned this the hard way.

Just my 2cents.

Vince

CCS

[Jon Dieterlen]

Hi Gene, the magic number is 3/32" each side. Take the opening size (height and width) and subtract 3/16" to get the door size. If you have an opening that gets double doors, subtract 1/4" and divide by two. We do a lot of full inset FF using the Amerock hige as well as Blum w/the plate that screws to the back of the face frame. These numbers work well for both.

Jon

[Michael Rice]

Gene
I used the Amerock hinges on my own kitchen that I built five years ago. So far they have held up well. You do have some adjustability with them, vertical, and side to side. You don't have any front to back adjustment like you are used to with euro hinges which means hinge placement on the stile is critical. I agree with the 3/32" gaps. My prefered hinge for inset doors is the blum inset that mounts to the backside of the stile. However, these are a real pain to mount if the FF is already attached to the cabinet. I mount the hinge plate to the FF before I mount FF to cabinet, then tape the hinge plate for finishing.

Mike

[Steve Dyches]

Gene,

Just to confirm others, we do mostly inset FF and do exactly as John described. Always works.
We do build our doors oversized slightly and square on the slider to exact size. This gives a really tidy reveal with adequate room for adjustment.

Steve

[Jon Dieterlen]

When we use the Blum plates that screw to the back of the FF stile, we leave the back off until the plates are attached. We always finish with the backs off, then attach the drawer slides, hinge plates, etc., then apply the back. Way easier to finish w/o backs.

Jon