QUALITY CRAFTSMANSHIP
At Specialty Woodworks LLC in Cumberland, Rhode Island, we treat every project as unique. Our custom cabinetry and other services combine different fields of construction. As such, we take your ideas seriously. You don’t have to pay big setup fees or have a minimum order to hire us. Just call or email us today to get started!
CABINETRY
From entertainment centers to display cases, we can custom-build any project. We can also make custom-raised panel doors for your furniture, kitchen, or building. Custom-draw fronts are also available.
MILLWORK AND MOLDINGS
We can work off a set of plans, sample, or idea. We can reproduce most molding in almost all types of wood species. Our team works with contractors and homeowners. This is a great option for a DYI homeowner that needs to match existing woodwork in a home or the general contractor that needs to match strict historic reproductions.
HANDCRAFTED FURNITURE
If you’re looking for a piece of fine furniture, let us help you with the design. You can even show us a picture from a magazine or a simple sketch and we can already work on it. Whether it’s a small table to a custom entertainment center, we can make it. We will help you through the whole process from design to production or home installation. We have a variety of wood and material you can choose from.
GENERAL INFORMATION ON RAISED PANEL DOORS
We warrant all doors to be within a size tolerance of +/- 3/64 of an inch.
All doors 23” wide and 46" high or smaller will have an allowable warpage tolerance of ⅛". All doors exceeding that size will have a ¼" warpage tolerance.
All unfinished doors will be ready for finishing. We recommend a light sanding to remove any scuff marks from shipping.
All rails and styles are 2 ¼" wide.
All doors are shipped via UPS Ground. Local orders can be delivered.
Orders cannot be cancelled once on the production floor.
If your order is to be painted, MDF is the best choice for this. You will need to prime doors first. MDF panels are raised 1/8".
All doors are made from ¾” stock unless other requested.
All shipped doors will be wrapped with kraft paper and foam which will be added to the shipping costs.
DOOR MEASUREMENTS
Note: If you’re replacing doors and keeping your cabinet boxes, and if your hinge mounting method is going to be the same as you have now, measure your existing doors and compare them to the opening sizes of the cabinet. Your task may become much simpler. Note which sizes go with certain openings.
The single most important thing about measuring doors is: you are ordering the exact door. Do not order by the size of your opening. Inset applications are rare.
Below are quality door recommendations for dimension allowances. A different measurement might be needed for more specialized fit.
Edge profiles of 6, 7, 13, 17, 24, and 33 are best left to somebody comfortable with measuring cabinet doors. Profile 6, for example, has a raised molding and may rub against another door if too close. This would also likely be the case in a frameless cabinet.
For all other edge profiles, add 1" of height and width for the opening. This is just a suggestion.
The main reason is that, if your door is the size of your opening, it will swing into your cabinet and look crooked. You want your doors to stop at the face of the cabinets.
“Why am I adding 1" in most cases?” The construction of a Euro box is generally out of a ⅝” thick melamine board. Older cabinetry may have thicker walls. When you add an inch to your opening size, that leaves an overlap or overlay of ½" on all four faces. You are hiding a half-inch lip all the way around the cabinet and allowing ⅛" to show. This is commonly known as full overlay.
For face frame cabinets, your door will extend ½" past the opening on all four sides. Then you can use a face frame concealed hinge or one of the many decorative popular choices in semi-concealed hinges.
European cup hinges are made by dozens of manufacturers and carry many degrees of opening and overlay choices. Consideration should be given to your planned mounting method before sizing your doors. Why? Okay, here’s the scenario.
Full overlay is approximately ½" of the ⅝" siding material being covered. In some cases, you will need a half overlay hinge. As such, half an inch of your cabinet won’t be covered. A panel that is ⅝” may have back-to-back two doors hinged on it. How could each overlay a ½"? It won’t work.
So you could move that door away from the direct center of the panel edge and achieve half overlay (either using a larger mounting plate or a half overlay hinge). So you moved to doors in opposite directions of each other on a cabinet bank that has four doors. Now, your external pair of doors are banging into your internal pair.
The internal pair actually should have been made less wide. Same height is correct, but the width should be about ⅜" or less. European hinges measure using the metric system.
The recommendation above is not meant to be confusing, but consideration should be given to mounting methods. In face frame applications that are full overlay, this problem generally does not arise.
You have to be careful when it comes to the distance of the face frame between your door’s top and your drawer front bottom. The drawer fronts should still measure 1" wider and higher than your opening. Note where filler strips may be needed to accommodate dishwasher door swings and protrusions.
ABOUT INSET APPLICATIONS (AKA “FLUSH”)
Many armoires and entertainment centers have inset doors which are mounted inside the cabinet walls, not in front of them. In this case, you may want your door to be ⅛" less in height and width, giving you 1/16" clearance on all four sides.
But what if the armoire or entertainment center isn’t completely square? Then you may have a problem closing your doors. You might want your door to be ¼" less in height and width, giving a ⅛" gap on all four sides (sounds wiser, doesn’t it?).
What about a pair of doors closing toward each other? Taking your overall opening, dividing by 2 and subtracting a ¼" from each door is going to leave a big gap between them. Now we’re thinking maybe taking 3/16" off the width measurement and that ¼" off the height. What will that do?
Example: overall width opening is 32″ and the height opening is 40″. Let’s make the height of our doors 39-3/4″. This will give a 1/8″ top and bottom gap. Now for the width, we want that 1/8″ on the left and the right, and 1/8″ between the doors in the middle so they don’t pinch. 32″ minus 1/8″ three times is 31-5/8″. Cut that in two because we have two doors and our door widths are 15-13/16″.
Another common feature of armoires and entertainment centers is pocketing door mechanisms or flipper doors. Pocketing doors are usually inset applications. They have to fit inside the opening. Yet some pocket doors are overlay doors. The overlay will be on the cabinet side walls and the special hinge will swing the door so it can retract inside the cabinet.
The overlay is not on the top and bottom walls of the cabinet box or else the door could not fit inside the cabinet. Overlay pocketing doors require more explanation than what will be given here. Our only recommendation is to purchase the pocketing door hardware first and follow the directions for it.
OVERLAY OR INSET: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?
Here’s something to consider when selecting hinges:
Look at your cabinet design before selecting hinges. On a Eurostyle cabinet, hinges are attached directly to its side. This gives you these options: full overlay, half overlay, or inset for the door within the opening.
Overlay Applications
If you want an overlay cabinet design, choose half overlay hinges in the middle of a row of cabinets and full overlay hinges for the ends.
Inset Applications
Here, inset doors will be recessed into the carcass of the cabinet. This will create a completely clean-lined and flush look.
Clip-On
Blum’s Clip-On feature lets you remove and install the door without removing the hardware.
How many hinges and how much adjustability?
Use our chart to decide how many hinges you need for the weight and height of your door. A 43” high and 14 lbs door needs three hinges. If your door weighs 14 lbs but with a height of 24”, use three hinges for maximum stability and support.
Use on doors that have 5/8” to 3/4” measurements unless otherwise recommended.