What a European Furniture-Hardware Drawing Asks For Beyond the Dimensions
Short answer: Drawings from European furniture-hardware makers usually carry more than dimensions. Expect a coating thickness, a salt spray result, an assembly torque, a pull-out force, a general tolerance class, material and lead-free requirements, and packing rules down to the carton weight. Each one changes the price or the process, so a supplier should read every line back to you before sampling.
What the drawings actually ask for
The examples below come from drawings and emails we have received from two European furniture-hardware makers. The figures are their requirements, quoted to show what such drawings contain. They are not our standard specifications.
- Finish: blue zinc with trivalent (Cr3+) passivation, at least 5 µm thick.
- Corrosion: 6 hours of neutral salt spray with no white rust.
- Assembly torque: at least 3 N·m.
- Pull-out force: at least 650 N.
- Plastic parts: lead-free.
- Tolerances: general tolerances to ISO 2768, with the maker's own part number for each item.
- Material proof: a material certificate for zinc alloy parts (Zamak 3).
- Packing: bulk cartons of 15 kg or less, labelled, on wooden pallets.
What each line means for the supplier
Coating thickness and salt spray belong together. "At least 5 µm" says where the minimum is; the salt spray line says how it will be judged. White rust is the zinc's own corrosion and appears first; red rust means the steel underneath. At the same number of hours, "no white rust" is a much stricter requirement than "no red rust", so the criterion matters as much as the hours.
Torque and pull-out are assembly results. They depend on the board, the hole and the fitting as much as on the screw, so ask what material and hole the test uses before you promise a figure.
ISO 2768 has classes, fine to very coarse. A drawing that names the standard without the class leaves the general tolerance open; ask which class applies.
Packing rules look minor but change the line: a 15 kg limit sets the carton size, labels need the customer's part numbers, and wooden pallets need to meet the destination's rules for wood packaging.
Product pages show the same habit. One hardware brand states that its wall-cabinet hangers are load-tested to EN 15939 and that the height-adjusting screw is secured against coming loose by accident. Another specifies a DIN 913 set screw for its aluminium frame connectors, tightened to 0.8–1 N·m. When a standard or a torque is on the drawing, it is part of the part.
How we handle a drawing like this
Before we talk about samples, we read every requirement back to the customer, line by line: what we will meet, how it will be checked, and anything we need to confirm with a plating partner or by testing.
If you have a drawing with requirements like these, send it through our RFQ form. We will come back with the line-by-line read-back before we quote.
Related: custom fasteners made to your drawing · black zinc or black oxide on hinge screws
How this was written: the requirement figures come from drawings and emails from two European furniture-hardware customers, not named here, and from public product pages. They are customer requirements, not TYF specifications.