Magnetic drawer catches ruined my schedule until I tried the cheap spring kind

I spent 8 years fighting with magnetic catches on cabinet doors I built. They kept losing pull strength after a few seasons of humidity swings and clients would call me back complaining. Switched to the simple spring roller catches from the big box store, the ones that cost like 3 bucks a pair. Now I set them on site with a quick template block I made from scrap plywood and they just work. Alignment takes maybe 2 minutes per door instead of fussing with magnet spacing and shims. Last month I did a full kitchen in Austin with them and zero callbacks so far. Anyone else move away from magnets for production work?

2 comments

2 Comments

cora8133d ago

Read a blog post last year from some custom cabinet guy saying the same thing. He called magnets the "fancy failure" and went back to springs after two warranty seasons. I get it too, humidity does weird stuff to that pull strength and you can't adjust it worth a damn once it's mounted. Springs at least you can bend slightly or add a screw shim if you need a touch more tension. Good call on the template block too, that's the kind of trick that saves your whole day on a big install.

jamesc793d ago

Yeah, that tracks. Heard a similar thing from an old timer who swore by springs too.