Expert: Jamie Yocono - 11/12/2008

Question
One hinge on my kitchen cabinet doors broke and I have not been able to find a replacement that fits. One side sets into a 'hole' in the cabinet door and is hinged to it's partner on the cabinet. I've sent pictures and measurements to the company that replaced one hinge in the past, however since the hinge is no longer made, they can't seem to match it. Any ideas? I've searched the web looking for discontinued hinges, but to no avail. Thanks!  Deb

Answer
Hi Deb,

That hinge is called a cup hinge, or a European hinge, and while your particular hinge might not be made anymore, there are probably a few out there that will work.

The "cup" part of the hinge is  a hole that measures 1 3/8" or 35 mm, which (as you know) is drilled into your door. The other part is called a base plate, and there are a great number of varieties of base plates. I'm sort of generalizing here, but there are a few things you need to know about your door. If you figure these out, finding the replacement hinge is relatively simple.

There are two kinds of hinges - face frame hinges, and cup hinges. I'm guessing yours is a cup hinge, although some manufacturers make a cup hinge made for face frame cabinets. But for the sake of simplicity, let's assume your hinge is a cup hinge. It sounds like it from your description.

OK, the first thing is - how does the door sit over the cabinet? There is a full overlay, a half overlay, or an inset position. What this means is - your cabinet box is (once again, generally) made of 3/4 " material. The door will either completely cover that 3/4" side (called a full overlay) or only cover half of it (called a half overlay) or not cover any of it (called an inset hinge).  

If you go to Rockler Woodworking's website (www.rockler.com) they have a very helpful page on hinges. Check out this page to see the various kinds of hinges, and how to pick out a replacement one.  

http://www.rockler.com/articles/display_article.cfm?story_id=11

Scroll down about 3/4 of the way and you'll see what I mean about the overlay of the door. The kind of overlay the door has will determine the base plate. That's the part that mounts on the inside of your cabinet.

Once you've figured out the overlay, you need to figure out how far the door opens. Look on that page at the top, where it says it's a matter of degrees. Does your door open just a little past 90 degrees? Does it open way more? Is it a corner cabinet, so the door sits at a 45 degree angle? There are all sorts of variables that will help determine the hinge.

Deb, I'm not trying to complicate things, I promise. Look on their page at all the different ways your door can sit on it's hinge. Try to find the door that most closely matches your door. After you do that, then I suggest you call Rockler. They have a decent technical support staff and should be able to help you find your hinge.

If that doesn't work - take a couple pictures of it and send them to me. I'll be glad to help. All-Experts allows you to upload pictures, and I'll take a look at them. Try to take a shot of both the hinge itself when the door is open, and the door closed, and then the cabinet (from a couple steps away) with the door all the way open.  I think that will be enough to help you figure out which hinge to order.

You can write back here, or to my personal e-mail - jamie@wooditis.com. Make sure you put something in the subject like "my cup hinge dilemma" or I might think it's spam and delete it.

OK, will wait to get those pictures. If I don't hear back, I'll assume you figured it out by looking at the Rockler website.  Good luck! You can solve this!

Jamie Yocono
Wood It Is! Custom Cabinetry
Las Vegas, NV
www.wooditis.com