Concealed hinges carry a huge amount of appeal for everyone from cabinet makers to interior designers seeking a pristine finish on interior doors. Hide away the hinges, and the simple act of opening and closing a door takes on a magic of its own.
How do they do that?
There are many ways to pull off the trick. In fact, concealed hinge mechanisms can vary considerably from one application to another. Most noticeably, the types used for furniture and for doors are quite distinct from one another. They have evolved into separate markets, with certain manufacturers known for specialising in concealed cabinet hinges and others in hidden hinges for doors.
Sugatsune’s HES3D range changes everything. With a groundbreaking concept, Sugatsune has become the first manufacturer to offer a single concealed hinge design suitable for doors of all sizes. From small cabinets all the way up to full size interior portals.
Elegant, compact, durable. the HES range captures everything we strive to achieve in our product designs – the perfect marriage of form and functionality, delivering premium performance wherever it is applied.
Different challenges
For all the benefits of concealed hinges – the neat, tidy finish, the ability to reduce the gap between door and frame/cabinet body – they do present certain design challenges. For full length doors, the standard solution for hiding away a hinge mechanism has been to embed it in a carved groove in the frame.
Not only does this make installation trickier, it is not a suitable solution for most furniture. Many cabinet doors are overlaid in front of the face frame rather than tucked away inside it. Even when they are inset, the walls of a typical kitchen or bathroom cabinet are too thin to cut a suitable slot into.
Concealed cabinet hinges therefore have to be mounted flush on the interior surface. This in turn creates the need for a double pivot, allowing the door to move ‘out and open’ to swing free of the face frame. That has led to the development of the elongated multi-pivot hinge arm that is now a familiar property of most concealed furniture hinges on the market.
It’s a design that marks concealed cabinet hinges out from the equivalent products for doors. While these long hinge arms are hidden from sight inside a cabinet when the door is closed, on a two-way door there is no such place to hide them.
Simple ingenuity
The Sugatsune HES3D series brings the twin tracks of concealed hinge development back together. From the HES3D-70 to the HES3D-190, the range provides a solution for small cabinet doors weighing no more than 9kg all the way up to heavy duty doors weighing a maximum of 125kg. Ten products, one stunning design concept – a concealed hinge for every purpose.
The secret to the trick? A design built around a reimagined butt hinge, with the single central pivot replaced by three or five rotating pivot points and shortened in length. In opening, this multiple pivot ensures the door clears the frame however it is mounted. When closed, this shortened barrel tucks neatly away into recesses on either side. Rather than protruding, the reengineered barrel is hidden from sight between stile and frame.
A deceptively simple solution to a long-standing problem. Just the kind of design challenge we thrive on.
Mounting made easy
As any carpenter or cabinet maker knows, hanging a door is a skilled business because of the precision needed in positioning both sides of a hinge. Getting this right when one half is already attached either to a door or frame/cabinet interior is tricky.
HES3D hinges allow the hinge mechanism to be unclipped from one side of the base, meaning you can install the frame plate without having to hold the door in position. The two halves of the hinge then just slot back together.
Once installed, HES3D hinges also offer three-way adjustment – hence the ‘3D’ in the name – providing precision control for the perfect finish.
Style as well as substance
As with all of our products, the HES3D range is built with aesthetics in mind as much as functionality. Sure, the purpose of a concealed hinge is to remain hidden from view when the door is closed for a flawless finish. But what about when the door is open?
The compact, symmetrical nature of the HES3D ‘butterfly’ design lends itself perfectly to situations where appearances matter, at all times. Stylistically, HES3D hinges are a step forward from the elongated arm concealed cabinet hinge types, providing furniture manufacturers with a premium option.
To support this, we offer HES3D hinges in three colours as standard – nickel, gold and black. We can also arrange for custom finishes to suit special design requirements.
