Euro Hinge Install When Using Pre-Drilled Cabinet sides

[Fred Floyd]

I've installed many Euro hinges, but nearly always have built my cabinets from scratch. This time, I am using the pre-drilled 11-3/4" melamine for the cabinet sides. When I ordered the euro hinges (54 of them), they came with screws already installed. The shelf pin holes exactly match the the euro hinges. I have heard that the euro system was designed like this, but now I have a problem. The hinges don't have much flexibility up and down. When I drill the 35mm holes in the doors, is there a magical trick or rule of thumb on how to get the hole positions correct? Any help will be appreciated.

[Kevin Jenness]

Decide where you want to locate the hinges in the line boring pattern.Measure from the top and bottom of your doors to find the hinge centerpoints halfway between your chosen holes.

[Jamie Buxton]

Disconnect the hinges from the hinge plates, if you haven't already. Screw the hinge plates on to the cabinet. Use a combination square to draw a faint line from the tip of the hinge plate to the edge of the cabinet. Hold the door in place, getting it where you want it in the up-down direction. (I generally do this with the cabinet lying on its back.) Transfer the marks from the cabinet to the door.

Unless the doors are all different sizes, I usually number the door so I know where it goes after I put finish on it.

[Peter Quinn]

I'd make a template from MDF, either to locate the 35MM holes or to mark the centers and back sets simultaneously of the hinge holes. This could be accomplished by attaching a set of clips to the case where you want them, attaching the hinges to these, measure the distance between centers, lay this out on a template the same length as your door height so the relative distance between hinges is fixed, verify this template against your hinges, should work for every door that size.