HES2

Flipping Innovation Around With HES2 Concealed Hinges

You know you’re onto something special when your customers start coming up with new ways to use your product—ways you hadn’t even considered.

Positive feedback is always welcome, but when it includes real-world innovation from users themselves, it’s the clearest sign that a product offers genuine design flexibility. That’s exactly what we’ve seen with the HES2, one of our most recent additions to the HES range of concealed hinges.

From the outset, the HES range has broken new ground. The original HES3D was the first concealed hinge without a pivot arm—allowing interior doors to swing both ways while maintaining a completely clean, uninterrupted aesthetic when closed. Since then, we’ve expanded the range to cover everything from residential doors to compact cabinetry, all designed to combine smooth function with high-end minimalism.

The HES2 was introduced as a simplified, surface-mountable model. Traditional concealed hinges required mortising into both the door and frame. The HES2 changes that—requiring mortising only on the door, while the frame side simply screws on. It’s a design tailored for door manufacturers, allowing them to pre-install hinges so customers only need to mount to the frame.

But then, something unexpected happened.

Customers began flipping the concept—literally. Because mortising is only practical in wood, we’d never considered HES hinges viable for aluminium-framed glass doors. But users have been mounting the mortised side into a wooden frame, then using the screw-mount plate on the aluminium-framed glass door. The result? A fully functional, beautifully concealed hinge on a glass door—without a single compromise.

This clever adaptation wasn’t part of the original brief. But it works, and it works well. It’s a perfect example of how innovation doesn’t stop at the design table—it continues in the hands of the people using the product.

At Sugatsune, that’s exactly what we strive for: intuitive, elegant engineering that invites creativity. With the HES2, it’s clear that even when you flip the rules, the results can be outstanding.