What's the most foolproof way to keep track of painted cabinet doors?

[Rich Engelhardt]

I'm slowing making 17 doors for the kitchen cabinets at a rental.
Whenever the weather cooperates, I do a little work on them.
Come Spring - or even earlier now that I have a dozen of them put together - I want to paint them.

In the past when I did this it was easy since I had the whole inside of the empty rental house to stage the doors & keep track of which door went with each opening.

Now however - the doors are stacked in the corner at my house & the cabinets are miles away at the rental.

I have each door identified - "A", "B", "C" to match the diagram of the carcasses - but - once I paint them, I'll paint over the pencil marks.

The cabinets are circa 1955 and were built in place - so -each opening is a slightly different size - nothing is standard.

I'm thinking ( I know a dangerous thing!) that I can mount the hinges then take them off and mark each door under where the hinges will go.

I'm afraid if I just stick a piece of masking tape on it's going to fall off - - or worse yet - - stick so tight it won't come off after a couple months.

[Kevin Jenness]

Mark in the hinge mortise and cover it with blue tape while painting. For a paint-proof mark, use a stamp set.

[George Bokros]

Are they the old style 3/8" overlay doors? If you have the hinges at hand mount them, remove them and mark where the hinges will go and tape over your marking. If you have some letter stamps (the kind that stamp into the wood) mark them on the lower inside corner.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I guess I'll be headed to Harbor Freight for some stamps!

I pretty much figured this would be the best way - but ~ $15 for a set of stamps is cheap.

[Jim Morgan]

Or stamp on top/bottom edge, whichever won't be visible once doors are mounted.

[Jim Becker]

I mark in hinge mortices, or...for upper cabinets mark on the top of the doors and on lower cabinets mark on the bottom of the doors. Mark your paper plan for the actual cabinets with the designation for the doors. I'm about to face this exact situation as I'm building new uppers for our kitchen (deeper ones... ) and several are effectively the same size.

[Mel Fulks]

The method used by a lot of "designers" is to make almost all of the doors a different size.

[Wayne Lomman]

Remove the door and leave the hinges on the cabinet. Then mark in the hinge mortise and on the hinge as well. I find permanent felt tip pen bleeds through most finishes. Cheers