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I am new to woodworking and have built a corner unit in our ensuite bathroom. I am looking to find a 45 degree corner hinge which is surface mounted (I am unable to use a hinge with a mortise due to the material the wooden door will join with). My doors have a 45 degree bevel edge because the housing is square. I have probably poorly designed it which is why I am struggling to find anything but I am where I am and want to try and proceed.

Diagram

Here is a crude diagram to try and explain my set up. The red circle is where the hinges will be placed.

enter image description here

[Edit] A normal hinge pushes the face side edge into the wall

enter image description here

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  • Any normal door hinge will pass through a 45° angle at some point in its travel. Your hinge will be forced to stop there by the other side of the cabinet. I'm struggling to determine what the issue is that you're having in this instance. Why can you not install a "regular" hinge?
    – FreeMan
    Commented Sep 15, 2022 at 12:42
  • Thanks for your comment. From playing around with a normal hinge I had hanging around it pushes the face edge corner into the wall because I have cut a 45 degree bevel edge.
    – AWGIS
    Commented Sep 15, 2022 at 13:19
  • Maybe I haven't had enough coffee yet. It might help to update your drawing (or provide an additional version) showing (roughly) how you installed/held the hinge and what/where the conflict is.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Sep 15, 2022 at 13:37
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    You built your cabinet wrong :-) Rather than casting about for a hinge that will make this work now (99% sure there are some FWIW) a better fix is to re-do the construction of the cabinet in a more conventional manner, so that basic hinges would work fine.
    – Graphus
    Commented Sep 18, 2022 at 17:23
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    For the future, I'd advise not building things as though you're in a vacuum — lots of us do this early on but it's generally a bad idea, and unnecessary! While plans for corner cabinets aren't super common, there are enough out there that I'm sure you could have found the conventional way to do this (some kind of face frame) without too much bother. And while searching it's a given you'd have been exposed to lots more info invaluable to a new/developing woodworker.
    – Graphus
    Commented Sep 18, 2022 at 17:24

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Wow, that took me some time to understand the issue you were facing.

A surface mount hinge is what you want, you just want to specify a cabinet surface mount hinge such as this one:

Surface mount hinge from Woodcraft
Source: link above. No endorsement of product or vendor implied or intended.

This hinge will mount on the face surface of the cabinet, while the leaf will mount on the back side of the door, so it will be visible with the door closed. They are available in a wide variety of finishes, so you should be able to find something that will match the aesthetic of the cabinet and room.

If you're looking for a hidden surface mount hinge, the other option is to install your leaf hinge between the cabinet wall and door edge, much like the hinges on the front door of your house. Depending on door size, etc, you could surface mount or mortise it in. You might have to make a slight rabbet to accommodate the barrel of the hinge itself.

It would look something like the (very crude) green hinge in this image:

updated version of OP's second image showing relocated hinge location

This would still leave the barrel of the hinge exposed to the room, but it would be much less obvious than the surface mount hinge above.

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  • The hinge you suggested could present a problem since it is being mounted to the edge of the door panel. The screws will have very little clearance before they poke through the front face of the door panel so they must be short. If the door panel is plywood or particle board then the screws may not be able to hold onto the door over repeated use. In addition, the reach of the hinge arms may put holes in the wrong locations to screw into the door edge. It might be necessary to add a backing board on the rear face to extend the width enough to receive the hinge.
    – Ashlar ♦
    Commented Sep 16, 2022 at 2:05
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    (cont) Perhaps use a piano hinge to create a narrower hinge width with more screws to hold it securely.
    – Ashlar ♦
    Commented Sep 16, 2022 at 2:08
  • Fair point, @Ashlar. Solving that is an exercise left to the OP, though, as this is his design. :) Very short screws, and perhaps an extra hinge (or two) or the piano hinge you suggest, would probably do the trick.
    – FreeMan
    Commented Sep 16, 2022 at 12:57

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