Corner Medicine Cabinet Door - Concealed Hinges

[John Baum]

I am designing a mirror face cabinet (20" wide x 26" long door; weight ~20-25 lb) to fit the corner of a room. I would like to use concealed hinges. The mirror face will be 1/4" thick glass. it will be adhesive mounted on 1/2" or thicker birch plywood (depending on the requirements of the concealed hinge.) I want the mirror to cover as much of the opening as possible in the closed position. I will fit a smaller, rectangular cabinet centered behind the door. I've looked for 'plan view' drawings of how concealed hinges might allow me to do what I want without binding at the hinge side wall, but cannot seem to word a search to find what I want.

Has anyone already done this?

Can you tell me how to avoid the pitfalls that might await me?

I decided to add a rough sketch. The upper and right side are room walls.

The triangular space in the corner will contain a dimmable lollipop LED bulb as a night light and down light.

Thanks,

baumgrenze

[Jamie Buxton]

If you're planning on using self-closing cup hinges, there's an interesting issue. You want the self-closing feature to trigger at approximately 45 degrees of closing, but the standard cup hinges are set to self-close at 90 degrees. Blum has a whole program of hinges that self-close at angles that are not 90 degrees. http://www.wwhardware.com/blum-angled-hinge-program-b079a

[Jerry Miner]

Blum can accommodate a "negative 45 degree" angle--- within limitations. Here is the drawing from Blum:

335589



To get your mirror all the way into the corner, you may have to get a little creative. Here's a sketch of that hinge with your cabinet modified to allow swing clearance for the extended corner. I would definitely do a mock-up first. HTH

335590

[John Baum]

Thank you both for the input.

My 'customer' is not a fan of concealed hinges and is urging me to explore using some 'free' 1-1/2" high-quality chrome plated brass piano hinge.

Experience teaches me that it will need to be mounted on the diagonal face of the 3/4" plywood. The 1/4" screw holes in the hinge are centered at 5/8" from the edge. This is too close to the 45° acute corner for screws. My current 'best approach' calls for facing the door edge with 3/16" metal (brass for ease of working) or stainless for rust resistance. It will need a 45° chamfer on each edge and 14 drilled and tapped 1/4-20 holes. I briefly looked into flanged tee-nuts set into a birch strip and epoxied and screwed to the edge, but I don't think there is room for them. Any other ideas?

thanks

baumgrenze

[Jerry Miner]

How about knife hinges?

(14 1/4-20 screws sounds like overkill for a 20 lb. door. You could at least skip every other hole)

Or maybe skip the "free" hinge and buy an undrilled piano hinge, then drill where you want and use wood screws.

p.s. you sure about that 5/8" from the edge dimension? In a 1 1/2" hinge, that puts the holes right up against the hinge barrel. Did you mean 5/16"?

[John Baum]

Jerry,

Thank you for persisting.

I am beginning to think I am chasing something that is physically impossible (or improbable at least.) As you pointed out, anything that extends beyond the pivot point of the hinge requires swing clearance. For a while I had hopes that a concealed hinge might work, but I am persuaded that they need more space than an acute 45° angle can accommodate. Concealed hinge makers would make their products easier to understand if they provided plan-view drawings of the hinge, with 'ghost' images of the parts at several points along the swing arc. If these exist, I've not seen them.

I've attached an image of the hinge I have. I think I may have miscommunicated regarding its size. It is 14 gauge (.052" thick) brass. The screw size is dictated by the 1/4 holes. The holes are at 2" intervals.

I'm going to sketch some alternatives, but I want to get this posted before I get logged off.

thanks

John

[Jerry Miner]

Yes. Miscommunicated. That is a 3" hinge. That puppy would protrude well beyond the face of the door (either the exterior side or the interior side---or some of each.)

If you can talk the "client" into it, a more practical solution might be a small fixed piece of mirror and a smaller (1 1/2") piano hinge:

336203

[Jerry Miner]

..... plan-view drawings of the hinge, with 'ghost' images of the parts at several points along the swing arc. If these exist, I've not seen them. John

These do exist, somewhat. I got the drawing in post #3 from the Blum site. It shows a shadow of the door in the open position. They have these drawings for at least some of their hinges, but you have to dig pretty deep into their site to find them.

--Jerry

[Bill Orbine]

Can you punch a hole in the wall as if you can drop the medicine chest into wall at 45 degree angle? You only need enough on one side (hinge side) so you can accomodate the regular concealed hinges and yet have a full mirror width from wall to wall at 45 degree angle. Follow my thinking? If you puch holle in wall both sides, you can have a "full" medicine chest.

[Walter Plummer]

I don't have any ideas on the hinge but I think you should get the client and a mirror guy together and find out what is really possible at that corner detail. I am trying to get some mirror cut now for rectangular doors and I am finding glass people don't work to the same tolerances as your wood door.