Installation of furniture hinges

For the installation and further use of doors at furniture enterprises, various types of fittings are used. When you purchased a cabinet and tried to mount it yourself, you will not be able to avoid such a stage of work as installing furniture hinges. The work is not very difficult, but has certain subtleties, so you have to tinker with this work. The design, appearance and even the life of the furniture depend on how well the doors are hung. To understand the method of assembling loops, you need to understand the features of each type of fastener. This is what we will do in this article.

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Types of Furniture Hinges

For cabinet doors, the following hinge models are used:

• The hinge parts come in a two-piece set and are joined by an axis. This is one of the most famous types of loops that were used in the era of the USSR.
• Modern four-hinge hinges are the result of the modernization of the previous type of model. They are characterized by versatility, can be used for various types of furniture.
• Cabinets with mirrored or transparent glass doors use special types of hinges. In this case, the kit includes a decorative plate-overlay and a rubber (plastic) O-ring, which is glued to the glass.

Hinges for furniture are structurally grouped into several directions, depending on the method and scope of application:

• Overhead and semi-overlay hinges with decorative elements are used for external furniture sashes;
• Insertion loops go for internal fixture ;.
• Corner hinges are needed for the installation of corner cabinets, while the shape and tasks of the furniture are not taken into account;
• Inverse hinges are installed when it is necessary that the furniture sash moves up to 180 degrees.

Installation of furniture hinges will not be completed at a good level without quality hinges of appropriate sizes and shapes.

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Tool base

How to install furniture hinges? The installation of loops is an operation, though not very complicated, but which necessarily requires the necessary tools. At the same time, if you want high-quality results, and not skewed leaves, be sure to take the time to select tools. The full set must include:

• simple or chemical pencil;
• building level;
• regular roulette;
• Phillips or ordinary screwdriver;
• drill with appropriate drills;
• simple hammer.

Important! Of course, an experienced craftsman can do with a screwdriver and a hammer, but the average worker is better off not hoping for luck, but being technically armed. To make the work more efficient, it is necessary to use only a pre-sharpened tool.

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Number of loops

How to install the hinges on the cabinet door with your own hands? Do not forget that when going directly to the installation process of the loops, you need to plan how many they will need to be delivered. And this is taken into account from the mass and dimensions of the doors. The more massive they are, the more loops must be screwed.

For light wall cabinets, two hinges at the top and bottom of the wings will become standard. For stationary floor cabinets - three or more. Specific quantitative indicators will be as follows:

• for doors up to 1 m and weighing up to 9 kg, 2 hinges are enough;
• casements with dimensions up to 1-1.5 m and weighing up to 15 kg - 3 loops;
• up to 2 m and up to 20 kg 4 loops are used;
• up to 2-2.5 m and more than 20 kg, at least 5 loops are necessary.

Important! When determining the number of loops, you need to put these parts “in reserve”. Gradually, with operation, fatigue will accumulate, the tree will begin to deform, and if you calculate strictly by weight, the doors may come off over time.

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Markup

This operation is necessary for the exact fit of the elements, so it will be carried out repeatedly. First you need to decide where the loops will be. Practice shows that you need to build on such a scale:

1. From the edge of the sash, put the marking level at a distance of about 2 cm.
2. The hinges must be placed about 10 cm from the upper and lower ends of the door.
3. When the loops are more than 2, then, first of all, mark the end ones, and then gradually put the rest so that they are the same length from each other.

Having placed the hinges on the leaves, it is possible to mark holes for screws on the door leaf. There is no particular difficulty in this, since they already exist on the hinges. The most important thing is that you must take into account the internal design of the furniture so that the hinges coincide with individual details, for example, shelves.

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Door mounting

How to install furniture hinges on a cabinet? After completing the markup, you can proceed to installing the loops. The optimum here is to conduct gradualness in operations:

• In the marking area, a recess is drilled under the fastener bowl.

Important! For drilling, it is optimal to use a drilling machine, since the processing section will be clearly fixed, and the drill will enter the furniture surface only strictly perpendicular to it. Using the machine, it is easier to determine the desired size of the recess, guaranteeing yourself against dangerous through drilling.

• Fasteners are placed in the drilled recess and selected 180 degrees.
• Niches for hinges are deepened on the plane of the sash.
• The process of forming holes through which the hinges are attached with screws to the door is completed.
• Next, hinges are installed on the cabinet door. The shutter is placed to the area where it will be fixed, and reliably aligned. Markings are made on the plane of the cabinet. The reciprocal level is placed. Loop elements are combined into a single whole.
• At the last stage, the reciprocal bar is installed. The depth of the recesses for the screws should be about 1 cm, that is, about two to three thicknesses of chipboard, from which standard cabinets are usually made.

Important! Before you begin, you need to plan the intricacies of installation. Loop parts must be on the same axis, then they can be operated for a long period of time. Otherwise, the pressure on the loops will become uneven, and the loop will begin to break.

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Adjustment

The search for the exact place for the furniture hinge on the door leaf can go in the vertical, horizontal direction or in depth. Figures are mainly formed, depending on the level of use of the cabinet, as well as on other subtleties. General adjustment features:

1. In order to move the doors to the cabinet or fix the hinges a little weaker, depth adjustment and fastening of fasteners are used. To implement this operation, you need a standard screwdriver. With its help, the oval hole in the loop changes. This adjustment method is used when the room where the furniture is located has uneven floors.
2. Vertical adjustment makes it possible to strengthen the doors above or below the previous position. Even well-adjusted sashes can periodically sag, because of this it is necessary to implement this operation after certain periods of time.
3. Horizontal adjustment is carried out in order to eliminate gaps between the wings and the cabinet body. When the floor is uneven, you can’t do without this operation.

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Installing a glass door

As already indicated, when starting assembly, it is necessary to take into account the material from which the cabinet parts are made.How to install hinges on glass furniture facades? Attaching hinges of glass doors is noted by some features. Main steps:

1. At the beginning, a section for loops is determined, a mark is put with a pencil.
2. Drills make holes on the wooden base of the cabinet.
3. A loop is placed in a niche and screwdriver fastens it with screws.
4. The glass part of the door is connected to the hinges using clamps.
5. In the interval between the fastener and the glass, special rubber plates are placed that protect the glass from damage.
6. Fasteners are firmly fixed with bolts.

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Stock footage

As you can see, mounting furniture hinges on a cabinet is not so difficult. But to completely ignore him, having done work somehow, is impossible. No matter how useful, multifunctional it may be, no matter how expensive, exclusive material is not used for construction, but skewed doors will always spoil the look. So success to you in their installation!