# Brass soft-close hardware for boxes?



## MarkDennehy (7 Nov 2019)

Hi folks, quick request for directions to an appropriate shop - I'd like to source a soft-close hinge or stay for a box, preferably in brass as the box will be in american black walnut. The lid will be a 3/4" thick 12x16" piece of walnut and I'd rather not give it as a gift only to get a phone call two days later from the hospital where the recipient was having their broken fingers reset after the lid dropped without warning. 
I checked Brusso and Isaac Lord already but didn't really find much that seemed to do what I want. The Sugatsune stays look like they do exactly what I want but they're, well, very _functional_ looking and I'm more thinking of something towards the Brusso look rather than the kid's toy chest look. 

Anyone have any suggestions? Pretty please?


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## Just4Fun (8 Nov 2019)

I have been looking for something similar but haven't found anything yet. If you do locate a supplier please post details here.


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## sunnybob (8 Nov 2019)

any use?
https://www.prokraft.co.uk/gold-plate-b ... brace.html


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## Bm101 (8 Nov 2019)

Try searching for brass friction hinges. Wonder if you could use a window stays type.


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## MarkDennehy (8 Nov 2019)

So that's more a stay and both Brusso and Isaac Lords had those in various forms, but it's more soft-close that I'm after in case the lid falls while someone's fingers are on the box (because of how it's used, you have to assume the user will be badly distracted all the time). 

I did come across this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxFSBPvuOfs

But his solution isn't off-the-shelf, he basically took a quadrant hinge and removed the arm, then put a damper cylinder in the mortice where the arm would have gone and had the piston rod go into the hole in the lid where the other end of the quadrant hinge's arm would have attached to (using a PTFE pad behind the hinge in the lid for it to rest on). 







And even those cylinders were a custom order and he had to order several thousand of them from the manufacturer (http://www.coricher.com/ in case anyone's interested, but they don't list the cylinder as a standard type from what I can find).

I've ordered a few similar cylinders as a backup plan. You can get standard sized ones if you search for "AC1007" or "AC0806" on ebay and aliexpress (or amazon), the names being codes for the kind of cylinder (Active Compensation) the cylinder diameter (10mm or 08mm) and the stroke length (07mm, 06mm, phnarr, phnarr). Someone else had used those, in a different way, as a soft-close for the last inch or so of a jewellery box by mounting them near the hinge and geometry means that even an 8mm soft close length there means a lot more soft close range at the front edge:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9T_EmXy0BQ





(it's that small grey button you can see there on the right edge of the box towards the back)

Thing is, it's less decorative than I was hoping for, and the cylinders are a bit long - you're drilling a 1cm diameter hole almost 60mm deep in the side for the ones I've ordered.


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## AndyT (8 Nov 2019)

If you are willing to make or modify something yourself, I wonder if you could make something where a little plastic or leather washer moved along inside a bit of brass tubing? 
Or as a source of modifiable bits, Ikea sell add-on soft closers for some of their chests of drawers for about £3 a pair. They use a plunger inside some slippery plastic tubing which is only about 5mm diameter by about 80mm long. 
A readymade item in polished brass would be much nicer though and a lot quicker.


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## tomatwark (8 Nov 2019)

I know it is not brass, but the dark colour would work with Walnut

https://www.hafele.co.uk/en/product/con ... 3&PDP=true


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