Adsibob Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 We have an MdF cabinet door that is 79cm wide and 39cm high, 26mm thick. It sags, presumably because the width of the door creates too much weight/moment for the hinges to support the door straight. i raised it with the joinery that made and installed this for us and they added an additional hinge, so that there are now three hinges. That has not made much difference, after a few days’ use it sags again and starts to hit the frame. I have adjusted the Blum hinges, but this also doesn’t seem to make much difference; it’s almost as if the hinges don’t have enough adjustment to them, but I suspect they weren’t designed for such a wide door. Photo below. Thoughts as to a possible fix which doesn’t involve cutting the door into two? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 (edited) MDF is heavy and at nearly 800mm pushing the limit of the hinges IMO. “kitchen” type hinges can sag unlike traditional hinges. Not sure what the spec (weight limit) of the hinges are. I put a mirror on a bathroom cabinet I made and the hinges could not cope with the weight. Edited May 29 by joe90 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrymartin Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 If you continue to struggle (and I think you will given the dimensions and weight), then you could consider glueing a piece of wood on the inside of the door such that when it is closed, it rests on the frame ensuring the door "looks" right when viewed and does not, in effect, sag... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adsibob Posted May 29 Author Share Posted May 29 3 minutes ago, garrymartin said: If you continue to struggle (and I think you will given the dimensions and weight), then you could consider glueing a piece of wood on the inside of the door such that when it is closed, it rests on the frame ensuring the door "looks" right when viewed and does not, in effect, sag... Won’t the piece of wood just crash with the cabinet frame? Could I ask the joinery to cut the door so that instead of 26mm thick it is 18mm thick? That would remove about a third of the weight. Another solution is to find some sort of specialist hinge that could cope with this weight. Anyone have any experience of such hinges? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 1 minute ago, Adsibob said: Could I ask the joinery to cut the door so that instead of 26mm thick it is 18mm thick? That would remove about a third of the weight. That did go through my mind, get him to router a hollow on the back to reduce weight (and leave the edges as they are) best talk to him about options. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrymartin Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Post a photo of the hinges. If this is recently installed, and the joiner is available, then leave the problem to him. If he was the one who built and installed it, he should have known there would potentially be issues, and is likely to know the best way to solve them. Weight is an issue, but so is the design, with the smallest side being the hinge side. But you already appreciate this from your original post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 (edited) 1 hour ago, Adsibob said: I have adjusted the Blum hinges, 54 minutes ago, garrymartin said: Post a photo of the hinges. Blum hinges are one of the best out there….. ah, do these hinges open 90’ or 165’ as the 165 hinges are a lot less solid!!! Edited May 29 by joe90 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adsibob Posted May 29 Author Share Posted May 29 These are the Blum hinges. All made by Blum, but middle one is slightly different to the other two - this middle one was the additional one they installed on the snagging visit a month or so ago. I have asked them to return to fix this issue, as well as a couple of others, but there’s not been a response, despite me chasing. It’s a shame the aftercare service is so poor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markc Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Is the carcass side panel distorting? The hinges could well be fine but the load may be twisting the side panel into an ‘S’ shape moving the top hinge towards the door and the lower one away so the door effectively sags but the panel may return to vertical when the door is opened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adsibob Posted May 29 Author Share Posted May 29 16 minutes ago, markc said: Is the carcass side panel distorting? The hinges could well be fine but the load may be twisting the side panel into an ‘S’ shape moving the top hinge towards the door and the lower one away so the door effectively sags but the panel may return to vertical when the door is opened. no, the carcass is rock solid. It's all made of 26mm oak veneered MDF and solidly built. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Can you rig up a camera inside the cabinet recording video (A phone should do that) so you can look at how the hinges, top and bottom particularly flex as you close the door. If you can see how they are flexing it will give you an idea how to strengthen them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Look at the model of hinge and look up its load rating. you might need a heavier hinge I have a few 800wide 22thick finsa mdf which is very dense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Blum hinges are probably the most widely used hinges on the market. Have used them myself. What I would do is remove the middle one temporarily. Set up the other two and refit the middle one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adsibob Posted May 29 Author Share Posted May 29 31 minutes ago, Temp said: Blum hinges are probably the most widely used hinges on the market. Have used them myself. What I would do is remove the middle one temporarily. Set up the other two and refit the middle one. well the middle one was retrofitted, in that originally it was just the top and bottom one and I complained about the door sagging and so they fitted an additional hinge. It's very odd, this website suggests that three hinges should be plenty as by my calculation the door weighs no more than 6.5kg and three hinges will do up to 12 kg: https://ea.blum.com/en/number-of-hinges/ Though that spec sheet does say that this is for doors up to 600mm in width and that doors should be higher than they are wide, and mine is almost 800mm wide and certainly much wider than it is is high. It's very frustrating, because our design was for 18mm thick doors, and it was only because the joinery insisted thicker would be sturdier that we went with a thicker door. I don't think there is space to fit a fourth hinge without flipping the door and redrilling 4 fresh hinge holes. But if I did this, would is certainly fix the issue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 The vertical separation between the hinges matters so a short wide door is the worse combo. Think I'd look to see if they make a version for heavy doors and/or move the hinges as far apart vertically as possible. I guess replacing with two doors would look odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 16 minutes ago, Temp said: The vertical separation between the hinges matters so a short wide door is the worse combo. The original joiner should have realised that, and fitted the original 2 hinges literally as far apart as possible. When adding a third hinge, putting it in the middle has added nothing That is the point it will pivot about if the first 2 hinges are straining.. You might, just might fit another hinge above the top hinge, if so that would have been a good place to add it, and if one would fit a 4th hinge squeezed in below the existing bottom hinge. There is a good reason why you see heavy doors hung with 3 hinges, but 2 near the top, not in the middle. He might be a good joiner, but he is a poor engineer. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garrymartin Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 I think you're going to struggle with hingeing on the short side with those door dimensions - there's a reason the European hinge manufacturers recommend a maximum width of 600mm and doors that are taller than they are wide. Can you live with it being top-opening instead? If you don't want something that physically holds the door in place once closed when side-opening (for aesthetics), then I'd look at Blum Aventos and changing the door to be top-opening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Temp Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 I don't know if these are actually any stronger or if it's just marketing speak but they say upto 40kg. https://www.eurofitdirect.co.uk/collections/heavy-duty-concealed-hinges Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnnyB Posted June 9 Share Posted June 9 It's probably too late to reply to this and help the OP but the hinges Temp has linked to are a heavier duty hinge. The last company I worked for used them a lot on heavy doors. They are a different hole pattern to Blum hinges so won't fix directly into these doors without making changes to the holes. If the OP is still having an issue I would look at Grass hinges as I believe they do a slightly heavier duty hinge than Blum. They also have different back plate thicknesses and fitting a thinner backplate should help the door look better when shut. It's say that any joinery company that leaves a door that out of square doesn't deserve to get their final payment. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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