Ikea Ivar Door (Hinge) Mod (104.530.72)

DIY + Ikea

Ikea has a new (?) product called a 'door', also known under the catchy nominator '104.530.72' 😎

Actually, they have two versions. I have used the rattan version here. Both though are not of a quality that would warrant the price. (40+ bucks, Ikea? Seriously?)

Issues

Unfortunately, these doors have several issues. They're poorly manufactured, the dimensions differ, and the hinges can't be adjusted enough to compensate for the innate tolerance of IVAR builds. How to fix that?

Hinge

The problem turned out to be twofold: vertical alignment (completely impossible with these hinges) and angle (only towards the inside, not towards the outside).

This picture shows the issue: there is no movement in the vertical direction (grey arrow) and only limited movement in the horizontal direction (red arrow). Green, red and blue lines indicate orientation of the hinge and the position of the door on the horizontal plane.

There is movement possible towards the blue line, but NOT to the green line.

Fixing Vertical Movement (Grey arrow) 

The only fix is to buy multiple doors, sort them to find matching pairs, then return the doors you don't like or need. (The problem is that the hinge fittings on the doors are not always in the same place.) I needed to buy 3 packs (total 6 doors) to get 4 usable ones. I returned the two that were too far off the mark.

Fixing Horizontal Movement (Red arrow)

At first I thought that to be a big enough problem to foil my plans, but in the end the solution was rather simple: cut away two sections of the plastic part of the hinge, so it can move closer to the wood (i.e. so the door can move towards the green line).

Cut away these bits with a sharp knife (careful with those fingers!) and you have more freedom to adjust the doors in the horizontal plane:

Final result: doors nicely lined up.