Essential Guide to Choosing Durable Custom Furniture Hardware Accessories

Custom Furniture Hardware Accessories: A Detailed Introduction

Just as a fine horse deserves a quality saddle, high-quality and durable hardware accessories have become one of the key elements of overall home living quality. Many consumers lack sufficient understanding and awareness of hardware accessories and often overlook them when customizing their homes. To address this, we’re providing a detailed introduction to commonly used hardware accessories in homes.

1.Hinges

Hinges, also known as butt hinges, are mechanical devices used to connect two solids and allow relative rotation between them. They can be made up of movable components or foldable materials. Butt hinges are mainly installed on doors and windows, while hinges are more often installed on cabinets. Based on the coverage of the door panel, they can be divided into full cover, half cover, and concealed.

Hinges are mainly divided into stainless steel and cold-rolled steel based on materials.

Q: How to Choose Hinges?
Stainless steel: Aesthetically pleasing with a variety of uses, corrosion-resistant, more durable than ordinary steel with high strength. Cold-rolled steel: High strength, but poor toughness, weldability, hard, and brittle with a bright surface.

So, cold-rolled steel is suitable for dry environments, while stainless steel is suitable for use in bathrooms and kitchens. Be sure to buy ones with dampers; dampers provide a buffering effect, reducing impact and achieving a silent effect. Dampened hinges are commonly used in homes.

2.Slides

Slides, also known as guides or tracks, are hardware connection components fixed on the furniture cabinet to allow the furniture’s drawers or cabinet doors to move in and out. Slides are suitable for connecting drawers in cabinets, furniture, filing cabinets, bathroom cabinets, and other wooden and steel drawers. Whether the doors and drawers in furniture can be smoothly pushed and pulled and how much weight they can bear depends on the support of the slides.

Drawer slides generally come in three types: under-mount, ball-bearing, and roller.

Ball-bearing: Smooth sliding, easy to install, and very durable.

Under-mount: The track is hidden under the drawer, durable, frictionless when sliding, noiseless, and self-closing.

Roller: Usually used for computer keyboard drawers or light drawers, does not have buffering and rebound functions, not recommended for purchase.

Q: How to Choose Drawer Slides?
The common drawer slides are two-section and three-section slides. Three-section slides can pull the drawer out completely, while two-section slides can only pull out 75%. From a practical standpoint, three-section slides are better.

In summary, the most recommended are under-mount hidden dampened slides, durable, frictionless, and silent.

3.Handles

Handles refer to tools for pulling or operating (opening, closing, lifting). Handles are installed on furniture, not only playing a role in saving effort and facilitating home life but also serving as a good decorative element when matched appropriately.

Q: How to Choose Handles?
Handles can be classified into various types according to different standards.

First: By material. The materials for handles are basically single metal, alloy, plastic, ceramic, glass, crystal, resin, etc. Common handles include all-copper handles, zinc alloy handles, aluminum alloy handles, stainless steel, plastic, ceramic handles, etc.

Second: By style. They are divided into single-hole round, single-bar, double-headed, concealed, etc. Different styles of handles have different decorative effects.

Third: By style. There are mainly modern minimalist style, Chinese antique style, European pastoral style, etc.

In summary, for general indoor use, alloy, pure copper, or 304 stainless steel handles are commonly chosen for their durability and resistance to rust. For door handles, thumbturn handles are more common because they are more convenient for opening doors, such as when your hands are full, you can open the door with your elbow. For cabinet doors, the style and material are mainly determined by the decoration style.

Support Brackets

Support brackets are mainly used to support furniture parts, such as shelf brackets, shelf supports, glass shelf pins, clothes rod seats, etc.

Casters

Casters are often installed at the bottom of cabinets or tables to facilitate the movement of furniture. According to the connection method, they can be divided into flat seat type, thread type, and pin type, etc.

Functional Hardware

Functional hardware: various pull-out racks in the cabinet, tatami lifting machines in the wardrobe, drop-down hangers, rotating hangers, rotating shoe racks, etc

Choosing hardware accessories requires careful consideration, as the quality of hardware directly determines the service life of furniture. We hope today’s content is helpful to everyone.