PROJECT-A-PALOOZA!!! -- Drawer and cabinet locks

[Ray]

I don't know about you all, but I HATED those roller slam latches on the cabinets and drawers on Seaweed. That hollow, empty-sounding, SLAM! drove me nuts.

I thought about, and experimented with various thumb-turns and push-open/push-closed latches, but none of them seemed to work well for me. Nor did any one solution work for the flush cabinets and then also for the surface mounted drawers.

I found a simple solution at the big box home improvement store. This is a home security latch for your doors. It mounts to the inside of the door jamb. It's really a clever little piece of stamped metal.





At only a few bucks, it fit the budget quite well, too! ....especially since it's not really brass/bronze and probably won't look too good for too long. I can just buy replacements at that point.

I figured out that the mounting tab could be cut off to allow it to be mounted on the 1/2 to 3/4-inch inside edge of all of the fiberglass cabinets. Here is the mounting tab cut off shorter.





Then I had to reproduce the countersunk holes so that the screws would sit flush with the metal surface and clear the cabinet door edges.





This is what they look like mounted to the cabinet door edge. The screws just go into the fiberglass. Don't try to use brass screws into fiberglass. They just melt/fold over like butter. I bought some stainless ones.





OK, it's not the prettiest install, but the door covers it up most of the time. Here it is locking the cabinet.





And here is that cabinet unlocked. When the boat is anchored/still, you can just leave them unlocked all the time and there is none of the slamming going on!





For the drawers, I needed a right angle mounting that was orthogonal to the drawer face. I cut a piece of teak that was the same height as the drawer faces and mounted three of the latches to the teak bar.





Then I could just mount the bar to the face of the drawer cabinet.





The drawers are VERY convenient to be able to leave unlocked at the dock or anchor and not have to slam them all of the time.




Anyway, hope that was interesting, at least!

As always, all of this information is in my photo album under Mods

Best Regards,
Ray