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Some of my kitchen cabinets have a problem where the hinges are slipping/losing grip at the top, causing the door to angle down and not close properly (you have to lift it up by the handle to straighten it as you close it). In a couple cases the door has slid completely off the hinges.

  1. Can I put a different kind of hinge on the door that won't slip? I'm a little worried that the door material might pretty weak and not very good at holding a screw.
  2. What is this type of hinge called? Could I get a new hinge of this style that might work better?
  3. Is there any way to increase the grip? I tried putting blue loctite on the screw holding the plate against the wood, but that didn't seem to do much good.

The I'm guessing the cabinets are probably from the 80s, and they have a type of hinge that I haven't personally seen before. There's a plate that goes into a slot on the door, and you screw down the plate to get it clamp on to the door. As you can see, the doors are made of some weak fiberboard like material, and they've cracked (and been glued back together). Here are some photos:

hinge on door

hinge by itself

door slot by itself

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    Good pics, well presented question. My gut (and I'm interested in the opinions of others, so I'm not making this an answer) is that flooding the mdf and hinge area with epoxy might both strengthen the door and lock the hinge in place. That's sort of a scorched earth solution, though, as it wouldn't be reversible if it went badly.
    – Aloysius Defenestrate
    Apr 4, 2021 at 18:04
  • Try to fill the screw hole with wood glue then rescrew, while holding the door firmly in place before drying. Another faster way is to add wood powder (left from sawing) to the glue, which will produce a better result.
    – r13
    Apr 4, 2021 at 18:05
  • @r13 are you recommend doing that if I try to get a new type of hinge? Just to be clear the current hinges clamp on, so there aren't any screws in the wood right now.
    – Kaypro II
    Apr 4, 2021 at 18:12
  • Your first photo shows two screws, try my recommendation if they are loose.
    – r13
    Apr 4, 2021 at 18:26
  • @r13 those two screws aren't driven into any wood. At least in the door, it's a machine screw that's driven into a metal plate that's hidden in the first picture. You can see the plate in the second. The plate only interfaces with the wood through friction.
    – Kaypro II
    Apr 4, 2021 at 18:28

2 Answers 2

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It looks like the part of the cabinet that is gripped by the hinge has a reverse vee shape so the hinge should not be relying on friction to stay in. You should look more closely at wear on the wood or the hinge that is preventing the hinge from taking advantage of this profile. Your pictures are great but I can't quite see what might be wrong. Open a good one to compare.

I may be wrong, that may just be deformity from moisture. I've never seen a hinge like this before. It's clever. I'm rooting for it.

enter image description here

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I have had these hinges on my Hagerstown Kitchen cabinets with no issues for 40 years. Your friction hold appears to be slipping. I suggest drilling through the friction plate and adding 4 to 8 small wood screws into each door, so that the mount no longer depends on friction alone.

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  • Could you expand your answer to show where all these screws should go? By my reckoning, there's not much room for that many screws and there's not much wood for them to actually hold onto.
    – FreeMan
    Sep 3, 2021 at 14:10
  • Drill through the small squarish metal outer component, two small holes above and two below the existing hole, to accommodate small wood screws that hold in the cabinet door wood. Also to enhance friction, pad the loose metal plate with cardboard for a tighter fit.
    – Phil Freedenberg
    Sep 3, 2021 at 14:24

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