# Full overlay doors on face frame cabinets



## noone (Mar 6, 2012)

I'm trying to build a face frame cabinet with full overlay doors. Is 1/4" the smallest minimal gap I can have where the door opens at the hinges? Ideally I'd like all my drawer and door spacing to be 1/8".

Does anyone have any pics of face frame cabinets with full overlay doors and drawers?


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## oluf (Jan 29, 2010)

The amount of overhang on the doors will depend on the hinges that you use. I think you are asking for trouble to try to hold the tolerances on something made of wood close enough to work with 1/8 inch overlap.


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## huff (May 28, 2009)

I'm a little confused as what gap you are referring to as being the smallest minimal gap. Are you referring to the reveal between two doors that are hinged back to back ( like the gap between the doors between two cabinets) If so, how wide are your faceframes?


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

Way easier to make it work if you stick to 1.5" face
frames. Any wider and you're asking for problems.

Cup hinges are drilled in 23mm from the edge of the
door. You can drill them at 25 and get a little more
overlay, but any more and they start to bind. You
can get them to overlay 3/4" but they are designed
to overlay a little less. The adjusters bottom out
and they won't go to a 3/4" overlay unless you drill
in 25mm from the edge.


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## LeeBarker (Aug 6, 2010)

I took the 1/8 to refer to the gap between doors everywhere.

If you use euro hinges, the widest stile dimension is 3/4". You'd use box mount hinges for that.

There are euro face frame hinges but the overlay is limited to about 3/4.

If you use something like this hinge,










then you can vary the overlay on a wider stile but the barrel thicknesses will dictate your gap.

A typical face frame/overlay door setup is just that- typical. On the other end of the field, the full overlay look is a product of euro technology and frameless design. They don't really mix, in my mind.

Kindly,

Lee


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## jusfine (May 22, 2010)

I read the question a bit differently, but in any event, the gaps or reveals of doors I have built and installed on face frame cabinets is usually determined by the hinge you use, although some can be adjusted more than others.


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## noone (Mar 6, 2012)

Yes, I'm referring to the smallest gap I can get away with where doors hinge back to back to each other, or where a door hinges next to a vertical stack of drawers.

Like this, which looks like 1/8" gap by the doors. It could be an optical illusion though. Or it could be frameless, too I guess.

My whole issue revolves around duplicating this vanity. I've made the carcass but am stuck at the face frame. The carcass is 3/4 prefin with a 1/4" prefin back. I can't really go frameless on this since I don't want bare white wood showing in the cracks. Plus I'd like to build a quality cabinet with a nice cherry face frame, full overlay cherry doors and drawers with a nice scrolled cherry base and cove molding. That's my goal here.

Cabinet I'm trying to emulate-
http://lumberjocks.com/topics/40541


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

No need for a face frame. Ball bearing slides on the 
drawers will keep the partitions parallel to within 
about 1/16", which is tight enough to look good 
with consistent reveals in overlay door and drawer faces.

Do you know about half-overlay hinges?

That's how I'd do it. Use 7/8" x 1/4" solid wood
lippings and you can stain them any color you like.


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## noone (Mar 6, 2012)

Why 7/8" wide? The sides and vertical drawer dividers are 3/4".


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## oldworld124 (Mar 2, 2008)

There are plenty of Euro style 35mm hinge configurations to get your doors within 1/16" to 3/32 of an inch gap. No problems whatsoever.


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## noone (Mar 6, 2012)

Even with two doors back to back with a 1.5" face frame centered on 3/4"?

Can you show me an example hinge?


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

You glue on the 7/8" lippings and rout off the
excess with a flush trim bit to a final width 
equal to the panel thickness.


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## roman (Sep 28, 2007)

1/8" is perfect


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## roman (Sep 28, 2007)




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## oldworld124 (Mar 2, 2008)

In the 35mm system you would get a 0 base plate and put a Blum 110 degree or 120 degree full overlay hinges on. These are adjustable to 22mm which is close to 7/8" overlay each. If you have a 1 1/2" face frame and mount one left and the other right you will have no problem at all tuning the doors very close together.

I can send you a PDF of the Blum catalog that has specs on every hinge they make.


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## noone (Mar 6, 2012)

John-

Which hinge are you referring to? A half crank or no crank hinge?

Got a link?

Thanks…..


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## noone (Mar 6, 2012)

I think I need a half crank hinge with a 0 degree face plate that mounts to the face frame. Am I correct here?


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## teejk (Jan 19, 2011)

welcome to the world of figuring out "hinge speak"


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## noone (Mar 6, 2012)

wait. that would be a no-crank hinge then…...

It's confusing when you don't have the hardware in front of you in your hands.


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## teejk (Jan 19, 2011)

ok…

you want concealed or visible hinges? (step 1 on your lesson in "hinge speak")

not being a smart-ass, just sharing pain!


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## noone (Mar 6, 2012)

Concealed please.

I think I need a full overlay (straight) hinge with a zero degree face frame mount plate.

Salice is what I have the cheapest access to.

Not sure how a Blum hinge can be adjusted up to 22mm of overlay unless John above is referring to the bore distance of the hole from the edge of the door.

Again, this would all be much easier if I had them in my hand.


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## teejk (Jan 19, 2011)

concealed it is.

now you buy the hinges before you make the doors. the "overlay" designation on those describes how much of the door extends beyond the hinge point (picture an "L"...one leg gets mounted to the edge of your face frame…the big leg with the cup on a 1/2" overlay will have your door overlap the door opening by 1/2" on the hinge side).

the "cup" is pretty big…standard is 35mm I think so you need to consider that in the door design.

I used a cheap self close euro hinge in my kitchen (about $1 per hinge). 6 way adjustable. cshardware.com


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## noone (Mar 6, 2012)

I think I finally figured out after seeing a concealed hinge in action at Lowes. The concealed 2 piece euro hinges with a separate plate and hinge make it so that when the door opens, there is very little, if any, protrusion to the side of the door when it opens because of the way it sort of pushes the door outward at the hinge.

I saw that my kitchen cabinets just had one piece concealed hinges that needed about a 1/4" or more clearance to the door next to them to open properly and that was what initially concerned me.

I think i'm all good now.

Thanks for the help.


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## suesue1 (Apr 9, 2014)

Noone, I realize this post is quite old but I am hoping you will help me. I am having the exact problem you did and I can't seem to get anyone to understand exactly what i want. Can you please tell me what hinge you decided to use? I made my cabinet doors the same width as the boxes. 3/4" plywood with 1 1/2" faceframes and I want all the doors and drawer fronts to have no more than an 1/8" space between them. The doors are 3/4" thick. Thank-you for any help.


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