Heavy Duty Cabinet Hinge suggestions

[Paul K. Johnson]

I have gathered most of the chemicals in my home and am building a largish cabinet to store them all in one place. The only things that won't go in it will be stuff that is more convenient where it's used (dish soap, laundry soap, etc.).

Not everything is going to fit so I've prioritized what has to go in it.

1) Model airplane fuel.
2) Paints and solvents.
3) Harsh chemicals (acids, etc.) I've heard acid can make things in the vicinity corrode no matter how well it's sealed so I may not include these. I have some 99% stuff that's really nasty.
4) Oils and waxes.
5) All other paint stuff (airbrushes, brushes, etc.)
6) Cleaning products. (If they don't fit that's fine because they're all under sinks where I won't use that space for anything else anyway).
7) Other finishing items (tack rags, paint strainers, etc.)

Now the shelves will not be adjustable because frankly, I just don't want to mess with it. They'll be fairly far apart to store gallon jugs and cans. The first shelf from the bottom will be spaced so I can put 5-gallon cans on the floor. I only have a couple of them but I have some other large items that will go there with them.

Now to the point. Because of the shelf spacing and the fact I have way more small cans (quarts, waxes, etc.) than anything else, I plan to build the doors about 7-10" thick with shelves more closely spaced for as much of the small stuff as I can fit on them.

I expect fully loaded they'll be in the 200 lb range (each door).

The frame is 2x material that will be fully lined on the inside with 1/2" or 3/4" plywood. I think the 1/2" will be fine. I'll have six casters on it so I can roll it. I doubt the assembled cabinet will fit through a doorway so the cabinet doors will need to be removed if I ever want to move it.

Do you think that standard hinges used for solid core doors will be strong enough? I'll be using the longest bolts I can.

If so then how many per door? I'm thinking 3 is enough but 4 would make me feel better.

Oh yeah - it has two doors.

Thanks,

- Paul

By the way, this project opened up tons of space in my shop. I was tired of my tools sitting out collecting dust but had no place to put them. I now have a three drawer cabinet that had nothing but paint in that's available and a very large shelf. Plus all the wax and oil that I don't use often that was sitting on various counters in the shop. It's all in my kitchen now awaiting their new home.

I still can't figure out why I'm single. I'd think women would love having the kitchen table covered with gallons of model airplane fuel. ???

[John Lankers]

Piano hinges can handle a huge weight load.
However, I can't offer advice to your last problem other than to remove the model airplane fuel and anything related not only from the kitchen table but from the entire house .

Edit: I recently built 2 stacked 30" tall and 28" deep pull out pantries for the kitchen on 2 sets of metal drawer slides each, they hold a huge amount of stuff and everything is right there when you pull it open, but they must be secured to the wall or else. For more weight carrying capacity add more drawer slides.

[Paul K. Johnson]

I thought about piano hinges and am still considering them.

Regarding the second problem, well.... I have an actual plan. I just wait until I find a woman with incredibly low, or no standards at all.

[Jim Becker]

Standard, heavy door hinges in larger quantities should hold the load just fine. You could also put a swiveling wheel/caster on the bottom of each door to help support it as you swing it open as long as your floor is, um...flat.

[Paul K. Johnson]

Standard, heavy door hinges in larger quantities should hold the load just fine. You could also put a swiveling wheel/caster on the bottom of each door to help support it as you swing it open as long as your floor is, um...flat.

The casters are a good idea. My current floor is terrazzo and mostly flat. When I moved in they had it covered with ugly carpet. The day after A LOT of expensive wood was delivered and sitting on that carpet my bathroom overflowed for hours while I was in the shop. The entire house was under water. That's when the carpet got torn out and I realized I had a much better floor under it. Most of the wood survived but as you can imagine I was pretty ticked off about it.

[Jerry Miner]

Standard heavy butt hinges will work fine (as Jim said above)-- they are used on 200#+ doors all the time. And if you want to pull the doors off to get through a narrow opening, pulling the pins on butt hinges is WAY easier than pulling all the screws out of a piano hinge !!!

[David Gutierrez]

commercial grade ball bearing hinges 4.5" x 4.5" three pairs should do it. four pairs if you want to be safe. many commercial doors are of a size that weighs in the 200 pounds. These hinges are not cheap not sure they are available at the home centers.

[Paul K. Johnson]

commercial grade ball bearing hinges 4.5" x 4.5" three pairs should do it. four pairs if you want to be safe. many commercial doors are of a size that weighs in the 200 pounds. These hinges are not cheap not sure they are available at the home centers.

Those were the first hinges I found when searching for heavy-duty cabinet hinges. Some were nearly $200 each!!! So yeah, they look like they'd work great but way out of my budget for this project. But now I know they exist. I had never even heard of them before.

[Jamie Buxton]

I'd expect 200 pound doors hanging on the cabinet box will distort it. Say you have one door closed and the other opened ninety degrees. The closed one is going to try to rack the opening of the cabinet box.

[Jim Becker]

I'd expect 200 pound doors hanging on the cabinet box will distort it. Say you have one door closed and the other opened ninety degrees. The closed one is going to try to rack the opening of the cabinet box.

This is one reason to consider the caster to support the swinging end of the door so that it's not pulling on the cabinet.

[Bob Michaels]

I used 4 ball bearing hinges per door when I built frame & panel garage doors out of 2 x material with 1/2"ply panels. These doors were not 200 lbs each but pretty heavy. The 4 hinges were used to keep the doors in alignment and the ball bearings made them open and close with 1 finger. Bought them at the orange box store and really quite inexpensive.

[Martin Wasner]

I

1) Model airplane fuel.

Completely off topic.

Switch to gas. Glow engines are such a pain.

[Paul K. Johnson]

Completely off topic.

Switch to gas. Glow engines are such a pain.

Glow engines are NEVER off-topic. I love glow. I have some gas too but far less experience with them. I scratch build almost everything but because of my job and my business I ran out of time and out of airplanes. I bought a large scale Pitts 12 which is gas and has an on-board starter which is super cool!

[Paul K. Johnson]

I'd expect 200 pound doors hanging on the cabinet box will distort it. Say you have one door closed and the other opened ninety degrees. The closed one is going to try to rack the opening of the cabinet box.

I'm really bad at estimating weights of anything except model airplanes. Plus when I build shop furniture it's always smaller than I imagined. I doubt I'll get nearly as much stored on the door shelves as I want but considering they will be completely lined with plywood and framed with pine I expect the doors alone to be 50 lbs. Then the stuff that goes in them will probably only be another 50, not the 150 I imagine will be in my gigantic cabinet which will not be so gigantic as I thought once it's complete.

I don't know the depth. It's whatever the piece was that was left after cutting something else. It's basically 6' tall, 4' wide and 26" to 30" deep. I still need to measure cans and tubs that go into the door before I finalize the door depth.

[Bill Dufour]

Do not store the acid with the caustic cleaners. If one leaks into the other there will be problems. If you are asleep when it happens you may not wake up, ever.
Bill