How to Make a Self Closing Cabinet Hinge Free Swinging

I learned how to make a European kitchen self-closing hinge free swinging due to an emergency. I had visited the local supply company and there were no free swinging cupboard hinges available. I needed them for a medicine cabinet that I was making that had a touch door on it. I wanted to use the hidden style or concealed European hinges.

There are several manufactures that make these. The brand that I prefer is Blum. In order for the touch door to operate correctly, it needed to have these special hinges. The cupboard was scheduled to be installed the next day. The sales person at the counter explained to me that I could make the hinge work by removing a hidden part.

If you look at a Blum manufactured concealed kitchen cabinet door hinge you will notice that the parts are held together by pins. Now, I am not referring to the face-frame type hinges. These are the full overly design that are used in true European style cabinetry. Those pins are removable. Once the pin is removed, there’s a plastic cam piece that makes the hinge self closing. In other words, what I am saying is that the company uses the same hinge to make the free-swing style and the self close style European cabinet hinges. The only difference is the little plastic (nylon) insert that makes the cabinet hinge close automatically.

Once the nylon insert is removed from the cabinet hinge, you can fix the dismantled assembly by inserting the pin back into position. This is really the hardest part of the entire process. You will probably need to use a hammer in order for the pin to be forced back into the metal casing of the cup.

I have not tried to make any other brand of European style hinge free-swinging. So, if you are using Blum hinges, you can convert the self-closing hinge so that it will not close automatically.