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  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2003
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    Central Coast, NSW
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    Default Sizing doors for kitchen cabinets

    Hi. I have made kitchen and laundry cabinets. Typical melamine-faced particleboard carcasses. I now want to get some doors cut to fit - and eventually sprayed with 2k.

    The doors will be the typical face-mounted things on concealed hinges.

    My question is how much smaller should the door be then the carcass? I’m thinking about 3 mm in each direction.

    So just to make that clear, if the carcass is 750 high by 600 wide then I would get the doors cut to 747 x 597.

    Does that sound right ?

    Cheers
    Arron
    Apologies for unnoticed autocomplete errors.

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
    Location
    Alexandra Vic
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    Default

    When I was CNC cutting, we allowed for 2mm gaps horizontally and vertically, and an extra 2mm on top if immediately below an overhanging benchtop. Only exception I can think of would be where the carcass forms part of an opening such as a fridge bay in which case the door would be set flush to the carcass on the cavity. Hope you have allowed for spacers between walls and carcasses so that they can be scribed to match the wall profile. Then allow for a 2mm gap between the spacer edge and the door edge so that it matches the rest of the layout.

    Standard material for doors to be painted 2K is 18mm satin carcass material. Similar to an 18mm smooth melamine MDF but with basic very lightly tinted finish on each side. Doors are cut to finished size (no edging allowances), drilled for hinges and handles as required and the edges are sanded smooth or sealed with high build auto spray and then sanded smooth, all corners eased to about 1mm radius them passed to the painters. Painters machine sand face and spray face and edges, typically leaving back unpainted and relying of the minimal tinting of the sheet for rear finish unless you request a full paint job because of your colour selection. However painting the rear face virtually doubles the surface area to be painted and jobs are usually quoted as $x/sqm, so back painting almost doubles the painting bill.

    Regular MDF while fairly flat, is not flat enough or tough enough to provide the required gloss finish, any minor surface defects will show in the finish.
    I used to be an engineer, I'm not an engineer any more, but on the really good days I can remember when I was.

  4. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2013
    Location
    Gippsland Australia
    Age
    66
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    50

    Default

    Hi
    European style concealed hinges (standard 95 degree) with a Omm mounting block, allow 3mm under the width of the carcase. The height really is up to you but 3-5mm is popular.
    If you go to the Blum web site there is a free download so you can see for yourself.

    Hope that helps

    Kevin

  5. #4
    Join Date
    May 2015
    Location
    Brisbane
    Posts
    1,147

    Thumbs up

    Also if you have two carcasses side by side you don't want to allow 3mm each side because then you will have a 6 mm gap. in this instance i allow 1.5mm per side and i use a 3mm aluminium angle to set gaps for doors and drawers.
    The standard mounting plate for a Blum hinge is 3mm and allows for the hinge side door to cover the carcass but the hinge has a lot of adjustment so no need to stress too much. Are your carcasses square? if they aren't you are going to spend a lot of time adjusting doors and drawer fronts and the only place to hide it is in the height under the bench top so allow 5mm between the top of the door and top of the carcass.

    In your case you have the luxury of pre fitting the doors and drawer fronts before finishing

  6. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Melbourne
    Age
    34
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    6,127

    Default

    2mm per gap.

    Door width = ((total length to be covered) - (number of gaps * 2mm)) / (number of doors)

    Example: 6 doors over 3m with a painted panel at each end (long island bench)
    (3000 - (7 gaps x 2mm)) / 6
    2,986 / 6 = 497.67 -> round down to 497mm door width

  7. #6
    Join Date
    May 2003
    Location
    Central Coast, NSW
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    Default

    Thanks for all the responses guys. I’ll go with 3mm under as that seems to cover all bases.
    Apologies for unnoticed autocomplete errors.

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