Door Clearance Issues with Euro Cabs
Occasionally you need fillers or spacers to address door swing conflicts in frameless cabinetry. March 27, 2012
Question
Up to this point I have always built face-framed cabinets. Now I am drawing up my first Euro cab job. With a box that is set in, that is not as deep as the adjacent box, how much clearance do you need for the door? Do you have to put a filler in with that type of situation, or can you just but the two boxes directly against each other and still have clearance for the door, assuming a full overlay on the door?
Forum Responses
(Cabinetmaking Forum)
From contributor H:
No clearance needed, no filler needed. You can put two boxes together. You might want to build some prototype cabinets first - it will answer all your questions.
From contributor L:
I do not do many frameless and have run into issues without having fillers. You need fillers at the ends of runs and inside corners or else your knobs will crash and your drawers will hit casings if too close to the elevation.
From contributor D:
Don’t make it hard – Eurostyle is very easy and elegant in its simplicity. I can understand why guys who make faceframe stuff find it a stumbling block but this is one area where the USA lags behind the rest of the world.
I am from Australia and have observed the transition from FF to Eurostyle over the last ten years. My dad built FF for years and his comment now is "Why didn’t someone come up with a uniform system in my day!" Hardware and design can work together very easily once you get your head around it.
From contributor W:
We never built anything but Euro. We completed maybe two jobs with faceframe in the last 16 years. I kind of wondered why it took so long for others to see it, yet it works very well.
From contributor D:
Contributor W - do you work in metric? Or do you still work in the nether world of imperial? Trying to fit metric hardware in to inches has never been an easy thing in my experience.
From contributor W:
No metric here. Simplyfied it using
Blum cliptop and full overlay FF plates and 5mm shelf pins. We position in the field, ladder back toekicks, dado backs, set drawers, and doors in field - very minimal punch list and damage. The sliptop hinges cost a bit more yet are like insurance if a door has to be removed for any reason and transported. No scratches from hinge rub and installers always have a few extra in case someone forgets the hinge at the shop. My guys are acclimated to just leave the hardware at the site. There will be someone that may disagree with me yet this has worked very well for us for a very long time.
From contributor L:
We've been Euro for 20 years. It's the standard for commercial work. To be efficient at frameless you should add some modern tools. Get the catalogs from
Blum, Grass, etc. They illustrate all the hardware very well. All plans still come (electronically) in imperial and we mix and match.
From contributor S:
I use 50mm fillers on inside corners. As stated before hardware will conflict on inside corners and I think it looks nicer with the fillers. The doors look jammed into the corner without the fillers.
From contributor C:
Yes, you have to be careful of a few situations for door collisions:
1. A reduced-depth cabinet beside a regular one - if you're using 110° hinges, for every 1" setback you should be fine with a 1/2" spacer.
2. Cabinets in a dead corner: Tight corners lead to door collisions. Typically the Euro solution is a blind corner cabinet with a 270° hinge. This is trial and error for your cabinet design.
3. Wall cabinets at various heights/depths with crown: Designers don't think of spaces so quite often you end up with doors hitting moulding.
