A Beginner's Guide to Understanding Cabinet Hinges

A Beginner's Guide to Cabinet Hinges What's your Cabinet Type? DD Face Frame Frameless The most common cabinet construction technique in the US is the Face Frame Cabinet. Typically, Face frame cabinets have a frame about 1 2" in width mounted directly to the front of the cabinet (hinge assembly mounts directly to the face frame). The frame area covered by the door is re ferred to as an "overlay." Frameless ca binets on the other hand lack this supporting frame structure. The hinges are typicelly affixed direct ly to the ca binet itself. The frameless construction tech nique allows for the cabinet doors to align closer reducing the overlay to as little as 1/16" whereas the typical face frame cabinet will have an overlay as small as 4". How do Your Doors Overlay? Overlay Face Frame Overlay When the cabinet door cabinet door covers the face frame in the manner such as pic tured a full overlay hinge is required. Face Frame Cabinet Frameless Full Overlay As pictured left, the full overlay complete ly covers the cabinet side edge. Ca binet Frameless Partial Overlay A partial overlay (as pictured) is where a frameless cabinet's edges are partially Covered by the door (often by about half). Cabinet Frameless Inset When door fronts are completely flush with the cabinet edge (as pictured) the cabinet requires an inset hinge