QA problems with kitchen cabinet hardwar
I purchased a blind corner rollout unit to use in a set of cabinets I’m building for a friend. When I first attempted to mount it into the cabinet, I had real clearance issues. To get the left side of the unit back far enough into the cabinet to clear the face frame, the right side wouldn’t extend far enough to clear the drawer fronts and handles on the adjoining cabinet. Finally figured out that the unit hadn’t been assembled correctly as received from the factory, the left side frame had been installed on the wrong set of mounting holes in the slides. After I repositioned it, the clearance problems were resolved, and I could mount the unit in the proper manner. I then noticed that the holes in the left side frame, into which the hooks for the included baskets mount, were not spaced evenly. I emailed pictures of the problem to the supplier from whom I purchased the unit, and they sent me a replacement unit. Got the new unit mounted, but found that one of the rollers on the left side frame didn’t properly clear the back side of the base roller track. Did some checking and found that the left side frame wasn’t square. As I still have the original unit, I was able to swap the right side frame from that with the left side frame of the new unit after repositioning some of the components. Now the unit is installed and it works as it’s supposed to.
This morning I mounted a tray divider rollout unit from the same manufacturer. I discovered that the unit had been mounted backwards on the tracks. Had to remove the screws holding it to the tracks, turn the tracks around, drill new mounting holes and put the screws back in.
This hardware was far from being inexpensive, yet it seems that the manufacturer is skimping on their QA process, overlooking some very obvious flaws. I appreciated that the supplier was readily willing to replace the original defective corner rollout unit, but with all the messing around I’ve had to do to figure out what the problems were and then correct the problems, I’ve probably burned up an entire day of shop time that should have been spent building cabinets instead of fixing manufacturing errors.
Replies
I hear you. The only solace i can give is been there too.
You didn't mention what brand hardware it is. Hope you're not motivated to protect them!
In any case, I can only say that all the top-notch hardware manufacturers have very top-notch QC. I've worked extensively with Blum, Grass, and Hafele hardware. I can tell you that such things can happen but they are very very rare. I've bought thousands of drawers from Blum and had only 1 defect. It's no different with the corner units. If you've already encountered 2 rejects, I'd say that you should switch companies very quickly. The supplier could jump over his knees at this point but I wouldn't look back.
It's business, that's all. If you screwed up twice on your client's cabinets, would you expect them to remain clients, even if you were the nicest guy in the world?
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?id=1&lang=e
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