Advice on Door seals and hinges for a piece of furniture that is a wine cellar

[Jeff Finn]

I'm building a piece of furniture that will look like a large armoire, but it's actually an insulted wood wine cellar. It has a cooling unit in the upper portion to hold the 55F temperature and racking to hold lots of wine - it's kind of a fun way to display your collection and also make a portable cellar that moves with you vs. building a dedicated cellar in a house. Enclosed are a couple pictures to give you an idea.

So far i've got a pretty good design for the insulated case and wine racking. I'm struggling to find the best way to mount the doors and seal them to the face frame. I'm currently planning to use pairs of the Kason refrigerator hinges (1512/1513) as they are heavy duty and can support the weight of a glass insulated door, mush like the designs found in commercial kitchens refrigerators. I'm not sure if any kind of spring, self closing types are needed. Does anyone have any experience doing this and could you recommend any hinge designs?

I probably need even more advice finalizing the seals. Standard metal refrigerators all use magnetic seals and i'm not sure how you'd make them seal against wood. I've done a lot of searching and they're tons of gasket shapes that are orderable in a custom rectangular size, but all the compression ones I've found are gray and I'd like it to be black or dark brown to it doesn't stand out against the darker wood. I'd appreciate any advice on what types of seals you recommend and any sources to order them from.

Best regards, Jeff

[Jamie Buxton]

Those magnetic door seals are great. They really do seal well, and they hold the door closed too. You could use them if you inlay a strip of steel in the front edge of the casework. The insulated casework walls are going to be fairly thick, so there's plenty of room to position the steel so that it is invisible when the door is closed. Galvanized or at least painted steel would be a good idea to avoid rust.

[Sam Murdoch]

Have you seen this company's product? http://www.tricomp.com/a.html Is this your design? That's a great looking wine cabinet. Wonder though if you might be better with a latching handle. Then no matter what you use for a gasket the door will always be secure. In this case though you would need to open one door before the other. A few styles shown here http://www.popscreen.com/p/MTA0NDI2ODU3/Amazoncom-Solid-Brass-Right-Hand-Offset-Ice-Box-Latch-in-AntiqueBy- Just a thought.