A buyer's drawing says "35 mm concealed hinge, soft close." You bore the doors, ship the container, and three weeks later the photos come back: doors binding on the neighbour, a 2 mm gap on one side and none on the other, one cup that blew a bubble through the face. Nothing on that drawing was wrong. It was just incomplete — cabinet hinge boring dimensions are five numbers, and "35 mm" is only the first one.
A 35 mm cup is a drill bit, not a hinge spec. The other four numbers decide whether the door closes.
What are the cabinet hinge boring dimensions, exactly?
Cabinet hinge boring dimensions are the five measurements that define where a concealed hinge is machined into a door and into the cabinet: cup diameter, cup depth, drilling distance from the door edge, fixing-hole spacing, and the cup's position along the door height. Miss any one and the door still mounts — it just doesn't sit right.
| # | Number | Typical value | What goes wrong if it's missing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cup diameter | 35 mm (bore 35–35.1 mm) | Almost never wrong — this is the one everyone specifies |
| 2 | Cup depth | 13 mm (fixing holes 11.5 mm) | Blow-through on thin doors; cup sits proud on shallow bores |
| 3 | Drilling distance (edge of cup to door edge) | 3–7 mm depending on brand | Wrong overlay, wrong gap between doors |
| 4 | Fixing-hole pattern | 45 mm centres (Blum, Hettich); 48 mm and 52 mm exist | Hinge won't screw down; you re-drill on site |
| 5 | Cup position along door height | 76.2 mm (3 in) from each end, to cup centre | Doors twist; the third hinge lands nowhere useful |
The cup diameter and cup depth come from Decore's published boring specification: 35 mm diameter, 13 mm cup depth, 11.5 mm depth for the fixing holes when they're bored rather than screwed.
Note what number 3 is measured from. The drilling distance is not the distance to the cup centre. It's the web of material left between the door edge and the edge of the 35 mm hole. Add 17.5 mm (half the cup) and you get the centre: a 5 mm drilling distance puts the cup centre 22.5 mm from the door edge. Half the disputes in this category are two people quoting the same hole from different reference points.
Why is the drilling distance the number that actually decides fit?
Because it's the only one of the five that changes with the buyer's overlay, and it's the one most likely to be left off the drawing.
Manufacturers publish a range, not a value. Blum's drilling distance runs 3–6 mm on 125° hinges and 3–8 mm on the 170°; Grass publishes 3–7 mm. That range exists so a fabricator can tune overlay without changing hardware. The moment you pick a number inside it, you have committed the door to one overlay.
Here is the part that costs money: you cannot infer overlay from the drilling distance alone. Overlay is the product of three things acting together:
- the drilling distance you bored
- the mounting plate height (0 mm, 3 mm, 6 mm are the common face-frame set)
- the hinge model and its arm geometry
Plate height moves overlay roughly one-for-one — swap a 3 mm plate for a 0 mm plate and you gain about 3 mm of overlay on the same bore. Drilling distance also moves it, but not at a clean 1:1 across every model, which is exactly why every manufacturer prints a drilling-distance / overlay chart per hinge instead of one universal rule.
The practical consequence for an export order: if the buyer tells you the overlay they want, you don't get to choose the drilling distance freely. Read the chart for the specific hinge they've nominated, then bore. If the buyer hasn't nominated a hinge, that's the question to ask before the panel saw runs — not after. The same reference-point problem shows up one level up in the order, in full overlay vs half overlay, where two factories can read the same English phrase and land 9.5 mm apart.
Where along the door height does the cup go?
Standard practice is 76.2 mm (3 in) from the top and bottom of the door to the centre of the cup. Decore also lists 2 in and 4 in patterns, which exist because tall doors and glass doors need the hinge moved off the standard line.
| Door height | Hinges per door | Typical cup positions (to centre) |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 900 mm | 2 | 76 mm from each end |
| 900–1,600 mm | 3 | 76 mm from each end + 1 centred or set to the shelf line |
| 1,600–2,100 mm | 4 | 76 mm from each end + 2 spaced evenly |
| Over 2,100 mm | 5 | 76 mm from each end + 3 spaced evenly |
The middle hinges are not load-bearing in the way the end pair is — they exist to stop a tall door bowing. Two things follow. First, their exact position is less critical than the end pair, so if a shelf or a rail forces a compromise, compromise in the middle. Second, they still have to land on a mounting plate, which means the cabinet side needs a hole there. Which brings up the half of this spec that lives on the carcass, not the door.
What does the cabinet side need?
Everything above describes the door. The cabinet side is a separate hole pattern, and in European-style casework it follows the 32 mm system: columns of 5 mm holes at 32 mm centres, set back a fixed distance from the front edge.
| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| System hole diameter | 5 mm |
| Vertical spacing (centre to centre) | 32 mm |
| Setback from front edge, front row | 37 mm |
| What the setback serves | Hinge plates, shelf pins, drawer runner mounts |
The 37 mm setback is the reason a single row of holes can carry hinge plates on a wall unit and drawer runners on a base unit — it's the shared datum in the Euro 32 hole-boring system. If your line bores at 37 mm and the buyer's hardware assumes it, the plates land. If you bore at 32 mm or 35 mm because "that's what we've always done," every plate needs a different screw position and the buyer's assembler finds out on site.
This is worth stating explicitly on the drawing even when you think it's obvious, because it is the single most common assumption that survives all the way to the container.
How narrow can the stile be before the cup blows through?
For a standard 35 mm cup, the published minimum frame width is 1-3/4 in (44.5 mm) for a solid door, and it goes up for glass:
| Door type | Minimum frame / stile width |
|---|---|
| Solid panel door | 44.5 mm (1-3/4 in) |
| Glass door | 55.6 mm (2-3/16 in) |
| Glass with French lite and rubber stops | 63.5 mm (2-1/2 in) |
Run the arithmetic and you can see why. A 35 mm cup plus a 3 mm drilling distance already consumes 38 mm from the door edge. On a 44.5 mm stile that leaves 6.5 mm of timber on the far side of the hole. Go narrower and you're boring into the panel groove.
The failure mode here isn't dramatic. It's a hairline that opens up after two weeks in a humid container, on the inside face where your QC didn't photograph it.
How thick does the door have to be for a 13 mm cup?
A 13 mm cup in an 18 mm door leaves 5 mm of face material. The same cup in a 16 mm door leaves 3 mm. That is why most export cabinet lines run 18–19 mm doors and why thin-door programmes need a hinge specifically rated for the thickness, not the standard cup bored shallower.
Three rules that hold across brands:
- Don't reduce the bore depth to save a thin door. The cup relies on full seating to transfer load; a shallow cup pulls out under a soft-close cycle count that the buyer will absolutely reach.
- Check the door thickness range on the hinge datasheet, not the catalogue photo. It's printed, and it varies by model within the same brand.
- A veneered MDF door and a solid timber door of the same thickness are not the same job. Solid timber moves; the cup wall in MDF is uniform. If the buyer is switching substrate mid-programme, re-check the bore.
What actually has to be on the drawing you send the buyer
Nine times out of ten this whole problem is a documentation problem, not a machining problem. The factory can hit any of these numbers. It just wasn't told which ones.
The drawing that stops the argument carries all five numbers, dimensioned to a stated reference point, on the image itself — not in a paragraph underneath it:
- Cup diameter and cup depth, called out at the cup (35 mm ⌀ × 13 mm deep)
- Drilling distance, dimensioned from the door edge to the edge of the cup, with the reference point labelled
- Cup centre distance shown as well, so both conventions are covered (drilling distance + 17.5 mm)
- Fixing-hole spacing (45 / 48 / 52 mm) and whether they are bored or screwed
- Cup positions along the door height, dimensioned to cup centres from each end
- Cabinet side: 5 mm system holes, 32 mm pitch, 37 mm setback, with the first hole's datum stated
- Hinge brand and model the numbers were taken from
- Door thickness and stile width the bore was validated against
That last one matters more than it looks. If you name the hinge the geometry came from, a buyer with different hardware can check compatibility themselves instead of assuming and finding out at assembly.
The tooling point worth being blunt about: this drawing has to carry measured dimensions pinned to the actual features in the photo or elevation, at the position each number belongs to. That's a different job from retouching a product shot, and a very different job from an AI image generator, which will happily letter a confident "22.5 mm" onto a door it never measured — plausible, well-rendered, and wrong in a way the buyer can't catch until the doors are hanging. Snap the dimension to the real edge, label the reference point in words, then export at whatever size the buyer's catalogue or platform wants. A wall cabinet spec diagram example shows the density that's actually readable at listing size — enough numbers to answer the question, not so many that the door disappears.
If you want the argument for spending an hour on this per SKU, price the alternative: a container of doors bored to the wrong drilling distance is a full remake, and the return cost calculator puts a number on what one avoidable rework cycle costs against the margin on the order.
FAQ
What size hole do you drill for a concealed cabinet hinge?
35 mm diameter, 13 mm deep, with the fixing holes at 11.5 mm deep if you bore rather than screw them. Bore tolerance is tight — 35 to 35.1 mm — because the cup is a press fit in most modern systems rather than a clearance fit.
How far from the edge of the door should a hinge cup be?
Between 3 and 7 mm depending on the brand, measured from the door edge to the edge of the cup, not its centre. Blum publishes 3–6 mm for its 125° hinges and 3–8 mm for the 170°. To get the centre distance, add 17.5 mm: a 5 mm drilling distance puts the cup centre 22.5 mm from the edge.
Do all concealed hinges use a 35 mm cup?
Almost all full-size European hinges do, but the fixing-hole pattern around that cup varies. Blum and Hettich share a 45 mm pattern; some Salice and Grass cups use 48 mm or 52 mm. Compact and mini hinges use 26 mm cups entirely. So "35 mm hinge" narrows the field without pinning the bore.
What is the 37 mm setback in cabinet making?
It's the distance from the front edge of a cabinet side panel to the centre of the front row of 32 mm system holes. It's the shared datum for hinge mounting plates, shelf pins and drawer runner mounts, which is why one row of 5 mm holes at 32 mm pitch can serve all three.
How do I convert drilling distance to overlay?
You don't convert it — you look it up. Overlay comes from the drilling distance, the mounting plate height and the hinge model together, and each manufacturer publishes a drilling-distance / overlay chart per hinge for exactly that reason. Plate height moves overlay close to 1:1 (a 0 mm plate gains roughly 3 mm over a 3 mm plate); drilling distance moves it too, but not identically across models. If the buyer specified an overlay, read the chart for their hinge before boring. If you need to know why the buyer's overlay number was ambiguous in the first place, that's usually a framed-versus-frameless problem, and the same trap shows up when quoting standard cabinet dimensions.
Sources & References
- Decore — Hinge Boring Pattern Options (35 mm cup diameter, 13 mm cup depth, 11.5 mm fixing hole depth, 2/3/4 in patterns, minimum frame widths)
- WalzCraft — Hinge Boring for Cabinet Doors (boring pattern reference sheet)
- WoodWeb Knowledge Base — Blum hinge drilling locations (drilling distance ranges by hinge angle, mounting plate height effect on overlay)
- Euro 32 Hole-Boring System Manual (5 mm system holes, 32 mm pitch, 37 mm front setback)