Bmw F10 Soft Close Retrofit

[Kerby Reynolds]

The1062 Soft-Close Kit contains the hardware necessary to make 1-door panel soft-close and soft-open when installed in a Johnson 100 series track profile. Soft-Close kits can be used to convert current 100 Series installations to soft-close operation or are available prepackaged with select 100 Series Hardware Sets for new installations.

In this instructable I will teach you how to retrofit the Blumotion soft-close drawer system (from their TandemBox line) to almost any drawer! Most people prefer to retain a consistent appearance in their kitchen, so replacing the drawers entirely is out of the question (not to mention very expensive.) The Blumotion system is one of the best, however it only works with the corresponding drawer system from the same company... or so they thought :)

Note about the small piston-type door buffers / dampers:

Before this project I attempted to use these to damp my drawers, but they didn't work well (drawers wouldn't self-close, or still slammed shut.) The Blumotion system with its long throw and spring+latch mechanism overcomes these issues. Thanks to adamazing for bringing this up in the comments.

Before drilling a hole in the drawer, you need to know exactly where to drill not only here but also in the cabinet, which is where we'll be mounting the Blumotion springs and dampers. The easiest way to do this is to remove a rail from the cabinet, fit it to the drawer and mark your mounting points on the drawer (use masking tape) and measure your offsets from the cabinet front and bottom edge of the rail.

Note that if your existing drawer system closes itself under gravity for the last 5cm (2") of travel, then your Blumotion system will need to be installed at the same angle. In my case, this angle was 2.5mm (0.1") down for the last 5cm (2") of travel, or a gradient of 1/20. The pictures in the next step will make this clear.

Once you know where to drill, installing the bolt is quite simple. I recommend using a split ring washer or a lock nut to ensure the bolt does not come loose over time.

As for the length of the bolt, the aim is to miss the cabinet wall by about 2mm (0.08"). Choose a longer bolt and cut/file away as necessary.

I prefer to keep the bolts as hidden as possible, so I've installed mine on the far side of the kitchen. Note that the second and third pictures in this step are of drawers on opposite sides of my kitchen.

On the things on our punch list was that the trash pull outs aren't soft close. I asked to have them changed out but the GC said our cabinet company doesn't make soft close trash pull outs. The actual holders are made by Rev-a-shelf so I don't understand why I couldn't just use their hinges which are obviously widely available. GC says this is not possible/advised.

Hello Lindsay,

Thanks for your offer to provide a testimonial on my new hinges.

After many years of consent concern when my friends and guests used my pool gate without assisting it to close softly I finally found and upgraded to a soft close hinge. Previously the gate could slam closed shaking the glass gate and pool fence vigorously. My Polaris 155 Retrofit hinge is a welcome relief, gently closing under all conditions. I am very pleased with the high quality appearance and performance of the retrofit hinge. During strong wind the gate may take additional time to close due to the wind pressure however this was the case before the upgrade under similar conditions and with the 155 hinge the gate always closes gently. I can highly recommend this product.

The wall mounted hinge was a little tricky in that it mounted slightly different than my original hinges, so I had to take the gate totally off and measure and adjust a number of times to get right. I also wrongly assumed that the holes were the same size as the regular mounting bolts, which meant that I drilled out the holes too large and had to pick a different location.

We are nearing the end of our bathroom renovation--just waiting on a few final touches, lights and the glass for the shower enclosure and we can move in! (Truth: I did move some hand soap in so we could stop walking out of our room if we needed to use the restroom and I still do half the time. Habit.) We added two different pocket doors to our bathroom last week and I love a pocket door (we added two others to our kitchen/dining area--read about those here), but for these, we added special soft close hardware that a reader clued us in about, and I'm here to tell you, it's life changing! Every pocket door needs a soft close.

To add the doors, we used Johnson pocket door frames, in 24x80 and 36x80 sizes. Due to the size of the soft close hardware, our 24in door (that's the one that leads into the water closet) would only allow the soft close function on one direction (slows down when we open the door, or slows down when we close it). We went with slow down upon closing the door, and we love it. The 36in door was wide enough to add the hardware both directions, so it closes and opens softly.

For the pocket door leading into the bathroom, the wall is thicker on the bathroom side than it is on the bedroom side. This was done to both allow room for the shower head plumbing while keeping the door functional, and to add stability to the wall for when tile was added. Pocket door frames have a little give in them if you push their walls, which would crack the tiles and cause them to pop off. Adding 2x4s (set flat, so only 1.5in was added to the thickness of the shower wall) will keep that from happening.

For the door between the bathroom and our bedroom, we went with a 36in version of the pocket doors in our great room, and stained it with the same English Chestnut finish (followed up with a few coats of Polycrylic to seal it). We wanted the water closet (where the toilet is) to be a little more private, so opted out of the window in the door and went with a primed, 1 panel Shaker-style door. Since the surface of the door was so smooth, we used a foam roller to give it two coats of Benjamin Moore Super White in semi-gloss.

Our contractor, Scott, used a router to carve out holes for one flush pull handle on each side of the doors, and an edge pull handle as well. We went with a brass finish, which matches the knobs on our vanity perfectly.

If you follow me on Instagram Stories, you know we added a chic plaque to the white pocket door (this prive one!) yesterday, it was too late to add a photo to the post, but I love the cheeky touch. While we still have a few things remaining, we are just so excited that we're able to start using little parts of the bathroom here and there. And putting in a little extra time, money and effort for things like making our doors soft close, is really turning this bathroom into something special.

Despite the instructions, you can modify a Johnson 1500 SC to both soft close and open for a 24 inch door. The reason Johnson doesn't do so is to maintain the same system for every door size (cheaper). The technical issues preventing it are

1. Maintain ability to replace track hardware by keeping it removable at finished end of door.

2. Maintain same set of instructions, measurements, cuts, and hardware for every door size.

For anyone wondering how, this is what I did.

1. When cutting the frame, do not cut the track shorter than the rough framing opening on the unfinished side of the door like the instructions say. Cut it flush with the wood at the width of the rough opening. DO NOT USE THE PREMEASURED CUT. IT WILL BE SLIGHTLY SHORT OF YOUR ROUGH OPENING.

2. Modify the unfinished side of the frame's steel end cap. Remove the two tabs that support the aluminum track and grind the bumps from the support of them flush. You can either cut the aluminum track a tiny bit shorter to account for the angle support bends in the steel end cap, or you can grind small knicks into the track so they fit and finish flush. I went for the grind small nicks method.

3. Remove the aluminum track.

4. Inset the steel end cap 1/8 deep into the frame so that it's flush with the wood. Your track should sit evenly on it - you don't want it to bend when you screw it in.

5. Replace the aluminum track, drill a hole in it that matches the location of the screw groove from the steel end cap and affix the steel end cap with a screw to the wood frame and aluminum track. This provides the support we removed in step 2.

6. The finished side of the door's steel end cap needs to be inset so that it's flush with the wood crossbar as well (you'll install track over it too)

7. Add a 2 3/4 inch piece of aluminum track to the end of the track on the finished side of the door. There should be plenty of scrap to make it. This makes the track go almost flush to the steel end cap, just like the unfinished side. You'll want to also take the full track off the frame so you can true the end of it so it's a smooth transition to your small piece. It is important that you keep this small track separate! It needs to be removable in the future so you can replace the hardware if needed. Affix it with at least 2 screws. You'll need to drill holes, but similar to the other side you can use a screw on both the end cap and the track.

8. Install your door hanging hardware on your door, but instead of 2 3/4 from the edge go flush with the edge. This allows you room for both of the soft close assemblies and critically margin to true the door with the frame.

9. Assemble and install the frame following the instructions as given by Johnson.

10. After hanging the door adjust the position of the stops on both the open and close side to provide 3/4in for the door jam.

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