Forum Discussion

moisheh's avatar
moisheh
Explorer
Nov 03, 2013

Keeping Cabinets closed

Until last season we traveled beyond Kino in A Bluebird MH. Built like a battleship.I never had any of the typical RV problems on the bad Mexican roads. The cupboards all had rooster catches and the drawers had aircraft latches, Everything was made of a special 1/2 inch plywood , glued and screwed. The only staples in the unit were for upholstery! In all our travels I never had a cabinet break or open while on the road. Of course rhe body was steel so the cabinets are attached to something solid. Fast forward to yesterday: We left Kino and were headed to Tucson in our new to us 05 Bounder. A nice unit but lots of staples! Things flex. The N.side of 15 is horrible. Even the semis were going slow. I did not see one Mexican drivinbg at the usual 140kmh! I had one cupboard open up and the closet door slid open. The front TV is a flat screen CRT Big and heavy. It rattled and I am afraid it will fall down. Being as we do not watch TV on our Mexican travels I am going to take the TV out for our winter trip. Next fall I will install a digital set. I would like to know what others have done to their cabinetry to keep everything closed. Over the years I have seen methods that work but are Mickey mouse: wooden dowels in the handles and even bungee cords. Presently the catches are those brown roller type with the thin metal tongue on the other end. I going to check if Home Depot has some that are made in USA.
Any suggestions that don't involve welding the doors shut!!
Thanks
Moisheh

Roller Latches
  • We use shoe strings on the larger double doors. Factory locks, lock mounted on stationary surface wraps around a pin on the door/drawer when closed, has held thus far on everything else. Have had to re-glue and put corner braces on the larger doors.

    rocmoc n AZ/Mexico
  • Check out the Southco C3 grabber latch. They are available is 3 release ratings and work very well. www.southco.com
  • You could search this Forum for something like `latches' and read on
    We installed Child-proof latches in the drawers. Before that I tried to put a dowel rod down thru the handles of our three vertically aligned drawers so each drawer kept the others closed. Not as sure as the latches. We don't have trouble with cabinet doors opening.