Frameless Question

[Damon Nabors]

I have a contractor approaching me about cutting out some boxes for a business and I have not researched frameless commercial cabinetry at this point in my career. I have to get back with him ASAP so I am looking for some pointers from those of you that build frameless.

The boxes have detached toes and will be melamine w/P-Lam ext. What is the normal orverlay on slab doors using 3/4 material? What is the normal gap between doors? The cabinet's will be 90" long with two partition dividing the cases into 3 compartments. Dbl Doors on each section for a total of six doors. I don't want to build this thing and have too large of a gap or not enough and have a rubbing issue.

Thanks for your help
Damon

[Gene Davis]

Damon, the best place to go to see specs is to the Blum website. You can download their entire hinge brochure in .pdf format.

We use the 107 degree straightarm hinge with a 0mm plate, 6mm cup bore distance, 1.5mm reveals at sides, 0mm at bottoms, and 3mm at tops.

Flush doors should have a slight radius or bevel at the edges of their edgebanding, which can either be achieved by using prerounded thick edgeband, or 0.5mm band nipped to a bevel with the edgebander.

Blum will show you tables for what you need to do when two doors are hinged off the same 19mm partition with through screws.

[Rob Davis]

Damon,
Of course "normal" is a scary word in the cabinet business. We make many of these types of units for drink counters in convenience stores.

We use 3/4" sides and our overlays are .375" on all sides. We use .125 gap on doors and if we inset doors, we use .125 gap on inset. That way when we band the edges, we get a close fit but no ruibbing. The .375 overlay is to accomodate the hinge from Salice which is called "half overlay" but people confuse it to mean 1/2" which it is not. It is half of a 3/4" sheet. Be careful on the partitions since you will likely have one thickenss of melamine and you can't overlay .375 or the doors will be touching. You will have to manually set the overlay on the door settings as you make each set to leave the .375 between. Some people leave less but we like to see the gaps even all the way around.

part of the key to this is the hinges. Use the zero clearance hinges so the door does not swing into the gap but comes out first and then rotates clear. They are readily available from may maufacturrers. Just get the frameless half overlay. Also watch for wall to wall units since you will have no clearance on ends for doors to open fully if pulls are installed, etc.

Detached toe is easy and works great for installers for what you sound like you are doing.
Hope you sell it!

[Damon Nabors]

Thanks for the info. Rob that was the direction I was going but wanted to hear it from someone else to confirm my thoughts.

Thanks,
Damon

[Michael S Murray]

Damon,
I will send you a couple examples to take apart and inspect..I beleive I have your e-mail

[Damon Nabors]

Thanks Mike, I got the cabinets. Now I need to disect them.