Furniture dowels: features of selection and use

Furniture dowels - plastic, metal, wood and other types - are designed to fix furnishings to the surfaces of walls and floors. The structures themselves are usually assembled in other ways, using more gentle types of fasteners. How to choose a dowel for furniture nails, fix it, what features to take into account, it is worth talking in more detail.

There are many types of fasteners for special purposes. The term furniture dowel usually means a product used when hanging cabinets, shelves, and other elements of the storage system on the wall. This element serves as an insert into a vertically located surface of concrete, solid or hollow bricks, drywall, cellular blocks, helps to reliably fix objects operated under load.

There are different types of dowels suitable for furniture. Usually they are selected based on the diameter of the fastener, the type of wall surface to which the product is attached. That is for a 5 mm self-tapping screw, you will need an insert made of plastic or metal with the same thread parameters. For quick installation, metal and plastic elements screwed into the walls are used. The dowel is a bit similar to them in terms of functionality - a wooden dowel for furniture, which also provides a reliable connection.

The most suitable for attaching furnishings to the wall are several options for dowels.

1. Universal polypropylene. They are used to create fastenings in walls made of solid bricks, concrete with a solid, non-cellular structure.
2. Nylon with arches. They have an enlarged spacer surface and are made of durable elastic material. In the construction of porous walls, holes are drilled under them, corresponding in length and diameter. Fixation of fasteners is carried out by screwing in a screw or self-tapping screw, its arcuate parts expand, securely holding the sleeve in the wall.
3. Plastic spacer with antennae. It is used for installation in solid brick, concrete, stone walls. The design has locking tongues that prevent the dowel from turning around its axis, wedging teeth.
4. MOLLY steel... The most popular standard sizes of the metal butterfly dowel are M6, M8, M10. It is used in drywall and brick hollow structures. After installation, the middle of the product opens up, preventing the dowel from reversing in the hole.
5. Steel mortise or dowel-nail. It is wrapped in drywall without first placing a sleeve.
6. "Butterfly" plastic. Similar to MOLLY, used when hanging lightweight furniture structures. Can be used for attaching light shelves to internal hollow partitions made of plywood, plasterboard.
7. Anchor... Made of steel. It is installed by push-in method into brick and concrete solid walls. It is used when hanging heavy furniture.

These are the main types of dowels used in attaching various furnishings to the surface of the walls.

The search for suitable dowels requires you to take into account the type of surface to which the furniture is to be attached. They are not installed on wooden walls. In other cases, you need to take into account the recommendations of specialists.

1. Fastening to brick or concrete... Here it is worth considering simple metal or plastic dowels, wooden corks for nails. They will be enough if the load on the wall is not too great, it is planned to hang a shelf or a kitchen cabinet.
2. Fastening to drywall. Here, special dowels are used that can provide reliable fastening. These can be products like "butterfly" or MOLLY.
3. Fastening light shelves with a minimum amount of additional decor or lighting. For them, it will be enough to use dowels-drills or "butterflies" made of nylon.
4. Heavy, heavily loaded shelves... Storage systems in the most critical areas of the kitchen, living area, workshop require the use of the most reliable metal fasteners. These can be MOLLY dowels or classic metal options.
5. If there is cladding on the wall... If the base is hidden under the interior decoration, it is necessary to use bookmark bars with a thickness equal to the same characteristic of the transverse frame. Here the best fasteners will be MOLLY.

No dowels are needed to assemble conventional furniture structures, here they use a confirmat, dowels, ties, providing the necessary strength of the connection... In storage systems - racks, built-in wardrobes, hanging shelves and "walls" - fasteners are used to securely hold even heavy structures in place under load. In this case, all kinds of "corners" and shelf holders become an intermediate element between the dowel and the self-tapping screw.

Most often, such fasteners are used when attaching the top row of cabinets in kitchen sets. In addition, in a similar way, the intersectional connection of modules in wardrobes is carried out, shelves for books are hung. Safety systems in furniture installed in children's rooms also imply fixing it to the wall. Using dowels, they fix the mirrors, equip the hallway with furnishings.

The following video talks about furniture dowels.