# Confusion on full overlay hinges and face frame cabinets



## Scott_C (Oct 13, 2012)

I'm considering building my own kitchen cabinets and ordering the doors. The current plan is face frame cabinets with 1.5" rails and stiles and as little reveal as I can get away with. Ideally I'd like to use 1 3/8" overlay hinges, leaving an 1/8" reveal on an individual cabinet and 1/4" reveal when two cabinets are next to each other.

I've read that 1/4" reveal is the minimum before you start to have issues opening the doors. I'm confused, is this the reveal when two cabinets are placed together, or before they are placed together?

Can I use a 1 3/8" overlay hinge with 1.5" stiles, or do I have to stick with 1 1/4" overlay hinge?

Thanks!
-Scott


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

35mm cup hinges?


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## chrisstef (Mar 3, 2010)

I second the cup hinges. The ones I used attached nicely to the face frames in the inside of the box.

Id say its when they are placed together leaving you with a 1/4" gap between the two doors. You want to leave yourself a little bit of room there for adjustments. Im almost finished with the cabinet door replacement in my kitchen. If you have anything that I can help ya with just let me know. Here's how the doors I ordered came out:










Ignore the Jim Beam .. I was doin a lil celebrating.


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## Scott_C (Oct 13, 2012)

I believe they are 35mm, I'm looking at these: http://www.cshardware.com/b-39c355c-22.html


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

Oh, I see. Those won't work with the kind of reveals you want. No
cup hinge will. The maximum distance from the edge of the 35mm
hole to the edge of the door is about 5/16". If you set the hinge
in more to try to get a larger overlay, the hinge will bind.

I talked to a guy once who said he made "frameless" cabinets
with a 1" wide face frame. If you made the frame that narrow
you could get the effect you want and have some of the
benefits of face frames.

I do concede that doing proper frameless cabinets without 
specialized machinery is tricky. I recommend Paul Levine's
book on Cabinet making because his methods draw on
both face frame and frameless systems and he uses the
table saw and router to do almost everything and the
cases come out square and accurate enough.


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## Scott_C (Oct 13, 2012)

So I could use something like this: http://www.cshardware.com/fr-et887141gg.html

and end up with 1/2" reveal when 2 cabinets are put together?


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## Loren (May 30, 2008)

I might not be thinking clearly about that style of cup hinge… 
it's possible. Buy a pair and fool around with them. You can
download spec sheets from BLUM that will show what the
range is.

You can really get in trouble if you don't do a range of motion
test with cup hinges before you get your doors made.


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## DLawlessHardware (Sep 10, 2012)

Something to keep in mind is that the thickness of your doors will determine how much reveal is required before the doors bump each other as they open in the case of back to back cabinets.


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## DLawlessHardware (Sep 10, 2012)

Also, same hinge but cheaper: http://www.dlawlesshardware.com/overlayeuro.html

I swear I didn't come here just for that reason, haha, but I couldn't help it once I saw we carried that hinge.


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## teejk (Jan 19, 2011)

Welcome to the confusing world of "hinge speak".

"Overlay" means your doors are going to extend proud of the face-frame and refers to how much of your door extends beyond your face frame on the hinge side. "Reveal" is a different matter that is more a "flush" door thing.

So if you are using 1 1/2" stiles and want no part of the hinge side face frame to be seen you would go with 1 1/2 inch overlay hinges. If you want to see part of the face frame when the door is closed, then do the math…1" exposed face frame would dictate a 1/2" overlay hinge, 1/2" exposed face frame 1" hinge, etc.

On an overlay single cabinet I think you would want to center the door in the opening so say 1" face frame exposed on the hinged side should be matched with 1" exposed on the non-hinged side. Doubles require a little more math but the concept is the same.


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## cabmaker (Sep 16, 2010)

Scott, why not just go frameless? Framless represents the epitome of simple when it comes to cabinetmaking.

I wouldn't recomend the hinges your looking at for sure! Looks like they only crank 105 deg.(not enough for kitchen use)

a frameless job will not require highly specialized equip. Unless you intend to go mainstream competitive cabinetmaking.

JB


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## teejk (Jan 19, 2011)

Cab…I agree but "frameless" requires getting some nice plywood (for whatever reason that stuff seems to be a rare commodity lately). And I'll add that the hinge costs on the "frameless" is high (I pay <$1 each on the 6 way adjustables).


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## Scott_C (Oct 13, 2012)

@ Teejk - I understand what your saying in your post, but what's confusing me is that I've read multiple times "leave at least a 1/4 reveal". Does a 1/4" reveal mean the distance between the outer edge of the door and the outer edge of the face frame it's attached to, or the door and the door on the next cabinet?

@ Dlawless hardware - the doors are 3/4 thick.

What I want to use is 1 3/8" hinges with 1.5" stile, that would leaving 1/8" from the edge of the door to the edge of the face frame, and 1/4" from door to door. I just looked at some cabinets on display at lowes and that's how they were set up.

I've thought about frameless, but I'm leaning towards pre-finished plywood and I don't know if I trust it to stay flat. I've read the frameless guys prefer melamine for that reason, the melamine does a better job staying flat. Either way I'd want to put some hardwood edgeing on it and I figure the face frame will give me a little wiggle room with bowed plywood. That combined with cheaper hardware of face frame cabinets.


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## Windowman (Sep 16, 2013)

I don't think you will have a problem opening the door but at that price get some hinges drill some plywood or scrap and make sure. That's a lot cheaper and you know the whole process before you drill your new doors and cabinets.


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## DS (Oct 10, 2011)

+1 to what Loren said. 5/16" is as close as you can get with those hinges before running into issues. With two doors, that makes a 5/8" gap. You can do less, but don't expect to have two adjacent doors open at the same time without binding.

If you want a true full overlay cabinet you'll need to go FRAMELESS and 1/8" gaps are commonplace in that world. It all has to do with the pivot point and the "throw out" on the hinge.

As my cousin said as I was adjusting doors on the cabinets in his new kitchen-"A Lexus fit" - uh huh.


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## 111 (Sep 2, 2013)

Here are the specs on the 39C
110 degree opening hinge
It says 7/32" is the minimum gap. So if you have 2 doors next to each other you would have to have 7/32 in between them so they don't hit each other. Also note, I'm pretty sure that is if you are opening 1 door at a time.
If you had a rounded corner on your door you cold get a little closer. Make a sample: Take a stile 3" wide and put 2 doors on it and see how it works out. Keep cutting the stile smaller to see how close you can get them before they hit.









Here it is a little closer


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## firefighterontheside (Apr 26, 2013)

With the adjustment that is possible with the hinges, you will actually have a.range that the hinge will overlay. Find out what that range is and then plan accordingly. Just looking at my European hinges and they seem to be able to range from about 1 1/4 to 1 3/4 overlay. You will then be able to adjust to get the tightest gap possible without one door hitting another. As has been said, you'll want to experiment though because this will have an effect on the size of your doors, especially on the cabinets with 2 doors. I have 1 3/4 face frames and pretty close to the look you're talking about. Where two doors back up to each other I have about the 5/8 gap that DS mentioned.


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## teejk (Jan 19, 2011)

Scott C…if you are going "overlay", then the "reveal" is only important on double doors that do not use a center stile (i.e. a big opening where the doors will touch when closed (in which case geometry comes into play…as you open one, the inside edge is going to hit the door that isn't open, hence the need to leave a gap when both doors are closed.

Wide openings usually use the center stile in the face frame because there are some practical issues with wider doors. Been a while but I think 30" used to be considered the max…think about having to stand 3' away from the door when you open it).


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## cutworm (Oct 2, 2010)

Bookmarked DLawless. Good prices on hinges.


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