Concealed Hinge Selection Assist

[glenn bradley]

Those familiar with Blum, face frame, ½” overlay, self-closing, concealed hinges . . . in short I am looking for a face frame mount, 3mm tab hinge that has more adjustment range than the 38N?



The long version . . .



I am fitting new flat and square 44-1/2” x 18” x ¾” doors to an ‘old work’ face frame. Although I thought the frame was “close enough” to true to be used I am finding the adjustable range of the Blum 38N hinges to be inadequate to overcome the deviations. The tilt (adjustment screw) and height (oblong hole) adjustments are fine for aligning the gap between doors and evening their height.


The adjustment I can’t quite overcome is the front to back positioning of the door. The frame deviation makes one corner or the other of a given door stick out in relation to it’s neighbor door. One option would be to demo the existing frame and put in a fame that is more true. I would like to avoid that.



I know there are face frame concealed hinges that have a greater range of adjustment. I also know that to people who work with this hardware regularly they all seem clearly unique and specific to their intended use. If you need an IPv6 addressing plan for a /48, I’m your man. When it comes to this hardware apparently I am a bit thick.



Anyone care to suggest a hinge or hinge series that will use a face frame mount, a 3mm tab (distance from the door edge to cup hole edge), self-closing, and has more adjustment range than the 38N?


TIA

[Tom M King]

Look at Salice. They have a good selection of mount thicknesses.

[Jamie Buxton]

Perhaps I'm missing something, but can't you just pull the hinge forward? If you feel obsessive, you can glue a shim to the front of the faceframe where the hinge is going to be, and then pull the hinge forward. This, after all, is what you'd be doing with the hinge you're searching for: make a bigger gap between the door and the face frame.

[glenn bradley]

There are tabs that register to the face frame thickness. There is some adjustment that you speak of by I need about 1/8" more. Yes, I could cobble a solution and am OK doing that. I just thought that if there were similar hinges that I could just swap out I would save some work. Sometimes I spend more effort trying to do something without extra customizing than I would spend doing it a fabricated way ;-)

[andrew whicker]

I don't understand either.. you can put the adjustment bottomed out one way or the other and install the mount a bit further towards the rear so you can adjust out to the right spot. I.e. put the hinge all the way in towards the back, install at like 40mm (instead of 37) and then back out the adjustment..


Those have +/- 2 mm adjustment in every direction, correct?

[glenn bradley]

You may be thinking of clip top style hinges. This is the 38N.

Blum 38N.jpg

The hinge base straddles the side of the face frame. It mounts in only one position. The over-body of the hinge then adjusts forward and back via the cam screw at the rear of the hinge.

[andrew whicker]

You are correct sir.

: )

[Jamie Buxton]

Look at the pic in Glenn's post. Carve out the back of the face frame by, say, 1/8". Push the hinge plate forward by that 1/8, and screw it into the face frame. The carving is all inside the cabinet, and nobody will ever see it. Takes less time than it took us all to write this thread. Simple.

[Larry Edgerton]

Look at the pic in Glenn's post. Carve out the back of the face frame by, say, 1/8". Push the hinge plate forward by that 1/8, and screw it into the face frame. The carving is all inside the cabinet, and nobody will ever see it. Takes less time than it took us all to write this thread. Simple.

Hi Glen! This..... I have set up a biscuit joiner with a special fence to do this very thing. It is adjustable for each door. I leave the flip down fence up and screw the fence to that and use the height adjustment to determine how much I shave off the back of the face frame.

[glenn bradley]

@ Jamie and Larry - Thank you, that's brilliant. I found that they they also make these:

Cop Hinge Spacer.jpg

I will try a shop made version. between using what I now know are 'cup spacers' and the method you describe I am sure I can get there. Gotta love the forums.

[glenn bradley]

Jamie is my new hero. I just drilled a recess with a Forstner bit, plugged the original screw hole, drilled a new screw hole, and all is well.

*** UPDATE ***

OK, now my wife is confused. As I hung the door and drew it into perfect alignment I shouted "Jamie Buxton is a freakin' genius!!!" She came running to see what the fuss was about. Although I explained it to her she still gave me that look that means she is going to go check the liquor cabinet.