Most hinge problems start with the wrong hinge, not a bad installation. People treat the selection as a style decision. It isn't. Cup hinges go where cup hinges go. Butt hinges go where butt hinges go. Using the wrong family means you'll fight the hardware for the life of the piece. So before we talk about installation, we talk about which one.
There are four families. They don't overlap.
Cup Hinges
If you're delivering cabinets to a residential client, you're using cup hinges. They're concealed, adjustable after installation, and they tolerate the variance that shows up between shop and field. That's not a small thing — field conditions are never what the shop was.
The cup presses into a 35mm bore on the door interior. The mounting plate screws to the case side or face frame. The overlay configuration (full, half, or inset) is set by the mounting plate offset. Specify this before you buy hardware — the plates aren't interchangeable.
Bore placement: 3–5mm from the door edge to the bore center. Too close and you split the corner. Too far and the door won't pull flush. Bore perpendicular to the door face. Any angle and the door swings in an arc instead of straight.
Three adjustments live in the cup mechanism: left-right (slot in the mounting plate), depth (pivot arm slot), vertical (plate shim or dedicated slot, depending on manufacturer). Every error is correctable after installation. That's the reason cup hinges dominate production work.
Weight rating is typically 20kg per pair. A solid-wood cabinet door at 600 × 900 × 19mm runs 7–9kg, well under spec. The cases that exceed rating are thick slab doors in dense hardwoods. Go to three hinges per door when you're approaching the limit, or switch to pivot.
Specify soft-close for residential delivery. It's not an upgrade anymore.
Butt Hinges
The butt hinge is for furniture — case work, fitted doors, anywhere the traditional presentation is correct and the installation gap is precise. No adjustability after installation. The door position is set by the mortise.
Leaf thickness on standard furniture butt hinges runs 2–3mm. You're cutting to within 0.3mm. Proud mortise and you get a gap when the door is closed. Deep mortise and the door binds under preload stress. Both are bad. Neither is subtle.
Sequence: score the outline with a marking knife, grain first then across grain. Pare in from the end to establish the depth shoulder. Remove waste in thin passes. Test with the hinge leaf flat — not proud, not below — before drilling anything.
Placement: 1/8 of door height from the top and bottom edges. This balances the weight load and keeps the mortise clear of the door ends where blow-out happens. Heavy doors or anything over 1200mm tall get a third hinge centered between the two.
Drill pilot holes. Every time. In hardwood, the pilot should be about 80% of screw shank diameter. Skip the pilot and you'll strip the slot or snap the screw. A broken screw in a finished mortise is not a recoverable situation.
For solid brass hinges with slotted screws: hand driver only for final seating. Snug, then one firm quarter-turn. The soft brass is easily damaged. If the slot is marred at all, it shows.
Pivot Hinges
Pivot hinges are for heavy doors and frameless cases where you can't locate a cup mounting plate. The load path is different from a cup hinge — weight transfers through the pivot points at the door's top and bottom edges down into the case floor and top, not laterally through the case side. That's why a pivot can handle a door that would pull cup hinges out of the case.
Two limitations worth knowing. First, pivot is inset-only. There is no overlay pivot in standard furniture applications. If the design calls for an overlaid door, it calls for a cup hinge. Second, there is no post-installation adjustment. Position is fixed once the door is hung and weight-loaded. Get the clearance right during dry-fit, because remediation means pulling the door and relocating the plates.
One check before installation: confirm the case floor and top can take the door weight at the pivot point. Solid-wood or plywood case stock handles it. Particleboard at the pivot point will not.
Strap and Surface-Mount
Strap hinges are the right hardware when the hinge is a design element — blanket chests, bins, barn-style doors. They're not a compromise. They're the correct choice when the application calls for visible hardware.
Rate a strap hinge by length, not barrel diameter. A 300mm strap carries more moment load than a 75mm strap with the same pin. And when you're surface-mounting, use screws long enough to get full bite in the case material. Short screws are the standard failure mode.
On lid applications, add a lid stay. A heavy lid opened past 90° without a stay puts full door weight in tension on the hinge barrel. Most residential strap hinges aren't rated for that load direction.
How to Choose
Answer in order:
Is the door inset or overlay? Inset opens the pivot option. Overlay means cup or strap.
What's the door weight? Under 20kg per pair, standard cup. Near the limit, three cups. Over, or no face-frame boss for the mounting plate, pivot.
Is the hinge a visible part of the design? Yes, strap or butt. No, cup or pivot.
Is post-installation adjustment required? Production or field work, cup. Fitted furniture, butt.
The hinge family comes from these answers. Everything else — spec, bore depth, pilot diameter — follows from the family.