I’m considering buying concealed hinges for old kitchen cabinets, and I think the instructions say you can install them in 5/8” thick doors. IIRC, the mortised hole (?) will be 1/2” deep and 35mm in diameter. That implies that there would be ony 1/8” of material past the mortised hole.

I think the cabinet doors are mdf, but I don’t know for sure. They may be a tougher material. I have an extra cabinet door to practice on.

If I end up destroying the doors, I was planning to buy a 3/4” sheet of mdf and cut my own slab doors. However this would require me to get creative with the drawer fronts to match depth. (If necessary, I was thinking about framing the door fronts with 1x pine and tacking a 1/8” piece of hardboard to the front, or not. Everything would be painted. I know it sounds like a hack, but I can’t afford new drawer boxes now. I plan to do a formal cabinet refacing later and get more cabinet building skills as we go. I will not be replacing base cabinet boxes.)

Do you think the 5/8” thick cabinet doors will survive the mortising?

I am not yet a skilled woodworker, so feel free to advise on mortising techniques. (So far, I just chop, rip, bevel, drill and nail.)