Expert: Jamie Yocono - 9/6/2008

Question
My kitchen cabinets have hinges similar to Mepla CS05 95 degree with 2 phillips-head adjusting screws.  What do I do to make the cabinet doors meet (they are slightly overlapping)?  Thanks in advance.

Answer
Joan,

Most euro-hinges that I use have three different adjustment screws - allowing me to move the door in/out, up/down and left/right. I am unfamiliar with the Mepla hinge you mention, but you need to look at it and determine if one of those two screws you see will give you that left/right adjustment.

It sounds like you need to nudge each door out a little bit, so they don't overlap. The hinges are actually pretty sophisticated devices, and I suspect that a simple adjustment will fix your problem. Look at the screws - if one is in a slot that goes up and down, that's not the one you need. You're looking for one that will raise or lower the hinge itself off the baseplate. In your case, you'll want to lower it, so that it's pushed close to the outside edge of the cabinet box.

I just took a look at the hinge, and it looks like it's the middle screw that you need to adjust, not the one at the very end. I'm just guessing here, but that's what it appears to me.

If you don't find that screw on your hinge, another suggestion is to ever so slightly trim the door to a narrower width. If it's a lot that you need to remove, then I suggest you take it off both doors equally. If it's just a hair, you would probably be OK just trimming down one door. Make sure the door is solid wood before you do this, or you're going to expose the core and it won't be pretty. So this second suggestion will only work for solid wood doors.

Last - if your hinge doesn't have the ability to be adjusted side to side, and you can't trim the door down, perhaps you might consider just buying a new set of four hinges for this particular cabinet. You need that three-way adjustment, and for about $15 bucks or so, you can save yourself a lot of trouble. I like Grass hinges, but there are a lot of good brands out there. Check out Rockler.com's pages on euro-hinges, their website is really helpful in determining what hardware you need. Heck, there might even be a Rockler near you.

Good luck, hope this helped,

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