Spent 4 hours chasing a 15 minute mistake on a cabinet door hinge

I was fitting inset cabinet doors for a kitchen remodel in Mesa and the damn center stile gap was off by a 16th on every door. Checked my measurements like 5 times, rechecked the hinge placement, even blamed the laser level. Turns out I installed one hinge cup at a slightly different depth than the other three on the first door and it threw the whole alignment off. Anyone else ever waste half a day on something dumb like mixing up hinge boring depths?

2 comments

2 Comments

claire6411d ago

Flip that first door hinge cup depth by a hair and suddenly you're questioning your whole existence, I swear. Actually, I think you might be overcomplicating it a bit - inset cabinet hinges usually have a fixed boring depth for the cup, like 1/8 inch or 3/16 inch, depending on the brand. If you used the same bit and same jig, the depth should be the same unless you changed something in between doors. What brand of hinges are you using? I've messed up bad before with Blum hinges where the cup has a little plastic adjustment ring that can get knocked loose, making one cup sit deeper without you realizing it. Check that ring (if yours have it) before you start shimming anything, because that's a ten second fix compared to re-boring everything.

the_max11d ago

Did you check if the hinge cup itself is fully seated? I had one project where I thought I nailed the depth but the cup wasn't clicked all the way into the boring, made the whole door sit weird until I just pushed it in a little harder.