How to add hinge holes without a door

[boubou]

Did someone figured out how to add hinges holes on both sides of the cabinet with only one door installed. Thanks, Boubou

[loriny]

There is probably an easier way but if I ran into this and it was a cabinet with the same construction parameters as any others in the job I would just build another cabinet and delete all the other parts except the end. I would save this with the job and then when outputting to the shopbot I would deselect(unselect?) the end that doesn't have the hinge holes.
Lorin

[englert]

There are probably several methods and that somewhat depends on what your end goals are. I'm assuming that your doing this so that you have the capability to reverse the door easily.

One method uses the Part Editor to create the holes and the Constraint Manager to restrict them to their position and size. In another method, if you install a door with the hinge pattern, the pattern can be created and mirrored to the opposite side by using the "Create Edges" option of the Part Editor in Contour Mode. That's overall easier than drawing each hole individually. The pattern would be inserted, mirrored and position thereby replicating the positions and size accurately.

There are several steps to this, first take the end panel with the hole pattern into the Part Editor. Go to Contour Mode and use the "Create Edges" option to create the pattern. Save the pattern to a library. Exit the Part Editor. Select the opposite End Panel and return to the Part Editor. Go to Contour Mode and insert the saved pattern. The pattern will need to be mirrored and repositioned to ensure that the holes are accurately located on the correct "front" edge of the end panel. Then, you must return to the main screen of the Part Editor to cut the holes by selecting "Cut/Pocket using Closed Contour". You will be asked to Cut Through or specifiy a depth for the holes. When complete, exit the Part Editor and go to the Constraint Manager to specify any restrictions for those holes. The onboard Help manual may help with some of the details.

Just to put a shameless plug-in for our training materials, both the video tutorials and "The Nearly Complete Guide to eCabinet Systems" provide instructions on how to do this. It uses shelf pin holes as their example, but the process is the same. The online videos are $25 a month and really is a great value for what you get. Over 25 hours of video clips that can be played, replayed, downloaded and content searchable. This program is essentially the same class that I teach at our facility and is a week long. The video tutorials are also complemented by the guide, as the tutorials are laid out in the same sequence as the guide.

Go to our website: www.ecabinetsystems.com (http://www.ecabinetsystems.com). Click on the image tile at the bottom that says eCabinets Online Training. There is a button that lets you preview the look and feel of the website and then another button takes you through the subscription process. The website also has a link for creating a new account.

Good luck with this. It may take you a little to figure it out the first time, but once you get it, it goes very fast and is relatively easy.


Dennis L. Englert
Manager of Product Training
Thermwood Corporation

[Gary Campbell]

Boubou...
We have done this in the past for a shop in FL. They requested all cabinets with L & R hinge patterns, no matter if they had L, R or pair doors.

We did this by making all cabinets with double doors. If a single L or R was required, we made a copy of the cabinet, called it Base18-Rdoor (for example) and deselected the original pair of doors and all the parts of the Rdoor cabinet except the doors.

We did try at least one of the method Dennis lists above, but each job had different draw or toe heights and margins, it seemeed to be easier to keep things right without applying constraints. This is a good example of what makes sense to programmers doesnt always to cabinetmakers.