Furniture Fittings Catalog: Guide to Hardware Types

A furniture fittings catalog looks like a parts list. Read properly, it is a map of how a cabinet is held together — and the reason it is organised the way it is, in families that appear in a fixed order, is that the families correspond to the distinct jobs a piece of furniture has to do. Some fittings hold panels to each other. Some hold shelves up. Some let the whole unit meet an imperfect floor. Some do nothing at all until something goes wrong, at which point they matter more than anything else in the cabinet.

Buyers who treat a catalog as a list of parts to be matched by shape tend to end up with fittings that fit physically and fail in service: a connector rated for a static shelf used on a folding table, a leg specified for an indoor wardrobe installed in a bathroom. The families exist because each one solves a different problem under a different set of loads, and the specification that works is the one that matches the fitting to the job rather than to the photograph.

This guide walks through the full range of furniture fittings by family, explains what each family does and what limits it, and sets out how to read and specify from a catalog without the mismatches that cause most field failures.

Browse the full furniture fittings range

What Counts as a Furniture Fitting

The Definition That Actually Helps

The useful boundary is functional, not commercial. A fitting is a component whose job is to join, support, adjust, protect, or conceal — anything that exists to make the furniture work rather than to be the furniture.

The load-bearing split is the first useful sorting. Fittings that carry structural load — connectors, supports, legs, fasteners — must be specified against a load figure and a material, and they fail in ways that matter. Fittings that do not carry load — bumpers, caps, edge trim — are specified against appearance, fit, and durability, and a mistake there is a cosmetic problem rather than a structural one. Mixing the two categories up is how buyers end up over-specifying the decorative parts and under-specifying the structural ones.

Every fitting in the catalog exists because a joint needed it. The reason there are several connector families rather than one is that different joints have genuinely different requirements: some must be invisible, some must be disassemblable, some must be permanent, some must be adjustable. Reading a catalog means reading those requirements off the products.

The fittings set the assembly sequence. A catalog also describes a manufacturing process. Cam locks, confirmat screws, and glued dowels impose different drilling patterns, different panel thicknesses, and different assembly times. Choosing fittings is choosing a production method, which is why the decision belongs with manufacturing engineering rather than purchasing alone.

Furniture connecting fittings for cabinets

The Connector Family

Joining Panel to Panel

Connectors are the largest family in any furniture fittings catalog and the one where the specification decisions carry the most consequence, because a failed connector is a failed cabinet.

The two questions that select a connector are visibility and disassembly. A joint that must be invisible and never taken apart points to a glued dowel. A joint that must be invisible and taken apart many times points to a cam lock. A joint that will be visible and permanent points to a confirmat screw, which is the strongest connection per unit of cost where the head can show.

Load capacity is a property of the panel as much as the fitting. Published connector ratings assume a specific board type and thickness. In particleboard, the limit is usually the thread's grip in the board edge or the material around it, not the connector's own strength. Specifying a heavier connector into a thin or low-density panel does not raise the joint's capacity — it moves the failure from the fitting to the board.

Some connectors need a system, not a part. Cam locks require a matched cam, bolt, and dowel set with hole positions held to a fraction of a millimetre; housing connectors require CNC-grade bore accuracy. These are specified as systems because buying the parts separately, however carefully, is the most reliable route to a joint that will not close on the line.

Complete connecting fitting systems

Load-Bearing Fittings: Shelf Supports and Legs

Holding Things Up

Shelf supports and legs do the same job in different places: they take a load and pass it into the structure. Both are specified against capacity, and both fail when the load is assumed rather than calculated.

Shelf supports fail at the hole, not the pin. A support pin loaded in shear presses against the side of its hole in the cabinet panel. In particleboard, that hole deforms under sustained load and the pin begins to sit loose — which is why pin diameter and hole fit matter as much as the pin's own material, and why heavy shelves use a support that spreads load rather than a larger pin in the same hole.

Legs fail when load per foot is assumed to be even. A cabinet's weight is shared across its feet, but an uneven floor or an off-centre load shifts the distribution considerably. Designing to roughly 60 percent of the rated capacity per foot is a workable margin; designing exactly to the average is not.

Adjustment range is set by the floor, not the cabinet. A levelling foot must have enough travel to bring every corner to one plane and leave usable adjustment on both sides of the set position. A leg with no travel left has no ability to respond to settlement or seasonal movement.

Cabinet legs and levelling feet

Screws and Threaded Fasteners

The Quiet Majority of Any Catalog

Screws outnumber every other family in a furniture fittings catalog, and they are where under-specification is most common — because a screw is a screw until it is not.

The thread must match the substrate. A chipboard thread in particleboard cuts and grips; the same screw in solid timber or sheet metal does not. Most stripped-thread failures in furniture assembly come from a thread form used in the wrong material rather than from an undersized screw.

Head style is a load-spreading decision. A head that bears on a wide ring puts far less pressure on the material beneath it than one that bears on a small circle — the same clamp load over a larger area. In particleboard, MDF, and thin panels, the difference between a pan head and a washer head is the difference between a joint that holds and a panel that crushes.

Pilot holes are part of the specification. In composite panels there is no forgiving grain: driving a screw without a pilot hole splits the board as often as it holds it. Pilot diameter should match the screw's core diameter, and this belongs in the assembly documentation rather than in the operator's judgement.

Chipboard and furniture screws

Functional Fittings: Inserts, Nuts, Bumpers, and Caps

The Parts Nobody Notices Until They Matter

The remaining families divide into two groups: threaded components that create anchors, and protective components that stop damage happening.

Inserts convert a soft panel into a threaded joint. A metal insert installed in particleboard gives a machine screw something solid to hold, which is what makes a joint adjustable, removable, and re-usable. Without it, every disassembly cycle removes a little more material from the board and the joint weakens each time it is taken apart.

Bumpers are specified for noise as much as for protection. A self-adhesive bumper on a cabinet door or drawer front absorbs the impact that would otherwise chip the finish and, in a kitchen or an office, the sound of that impact. It is a small part with a disproportionate effect on how a piece of furniture feels.

Caps and covers are finish decisions with a corrosion consequence. An exposed screw head in a damp environment is a corrosion starting point as well as a visual defect. A cap that covers it does both jobs, and specifying the cap material for the environment is the same decision as specifying the screw's finish.

Bumpers, caps, and protective fittings

How the Families Fit Together

A Cabinet, Zone by Zone

The clearest way to read a fittings catalog is to follow a cabinet from the floor up, noting which family appears where.

The back panel is a structural fitting, not a cosmetic one. A cabinet that racks out of square is usually short of bracing rather than short of fasteners, and the back panel is what provides that bracing. Specifying it as a structural element — adequate thickness, adequately fixed — is one of the cheapest ways to raise a cabinet's rigidity and its service life.

Threaded points belong in the original specification, not the repair. Converting a panel to an insert after the fact means drilling into material that has already been loaded and possibly damaged. Specifying inserts at design time costs a fraction of a unit and makes the entire product serviceable.

Threaded inserts and sockets

Reading a Catalog: What the Columns Mean

Specification Data You Should Demand

A catalog that lists dimensions but not performance forces the buyer to guess. The columns that matter most are the ones that describe behaviour rather than shape.

A load rating without test conditions is not a specification. A figure quoted without stating the board type, the panel thickness, and whether the load was static or repeated cannot be compared with another supplier's figure or applied to a real design. Ask for the conditions, and treat a supplier who cannot describe them as a risk.

Corrosion performance should be specified as a class, not a material name. Material alone does not define corrosion resistance — plating thickness and quality matter as much as the substrate. The EN 1670 classification for furniture hardware grades corrosion resistance in defined classes, which makes a requirement testable, comparable between suppliers, and verifiable by a third party.

Tolerance is the column that predicts assembly problems. Two fittings that fit individually can still fail to assemble together if the accumulated tolerance between them exceeds the clearance designed into the joint. Where a fitting's performance depends on position — cam locks above all — the tolerance belongs in the catalog, not in the buyer's assumption.

Fittings manufactured to specification

Materials and Finishes Across the Catalog

The Same Five Materials, Everywhere

Almost every fitting in a furniture catalog is made from a small number of materials, and knowing their limits answers most specification questions at once.

Zinc alloy is the default for connectors, and it has a limit. Die-cast zinc handles the bearing loads inside a cam lock or a housing connector well and costs far less than steel, which is why it dominates the family. It is not a structural material for high tensile loads, and a zinc component in a joint that must take serious pulling force is the wrong choice regardless of its dimensions.

Stainless steel is the answer to the environment, not to the load. A 304 stainless fitting and a plated carbon fitting may carry the same load, but only one of them survives a bathroom or a coastal installation. Where corrosion is the failure mode, upgrading material is the fix; where load is the failure mode, upgrading dimensions is.

Plastic has a legitimate place. In shelf supports, caps, and bumpers, an engineering polymer is often the best choice — it does not corrode, it does not mark surfaces, and it damps vibration. The mistake is using a plastic component where the load is structural, which is the single most common under-specification in low-cost furniture.

Threaded inserts for serviceable joints

Specifying From a Catalog Without Getting It Wrong

A Working Sequence

Working through the families in order prevents the most common errors, most of which come from specifying appearance before performance.

Specify performance first and appearance last. A fitting chosen for its finish and then checked for load is a fitting chosen in the wrong order. In practice, most of the expensive specification errors we see in incoming enquiries are decorative decisions that were made before the load was calculated.

Buy related fittings from one source where the joint depends on the match. Cam and bolt, insert and screw, leg and plate: these are matched pairs with interdependent tolerances. Sourcing them separately to save a small amount per unit is the most reliable way to build a joint that will not assemble cleanly or will loosen in the field.

Ask for the test data, and expect third-party verification. Load and corrosion claims should be backed by test reports, and independent verification by a recognised laboratory — SGS, TÜV, Intertek, or Bureau Veritas — turns a supplier's assertion into a document a buyer can rely on.

Confirmat screws for strong panel joints

From Catalog to Bill of Materials

Making the Selection Repeatable

A catalog selection only becomes an operational asset when it is written down as a bill of materials with the performance data attached.

A documented bill of materials prevents silent substitution. When a part is specified by description only — "cam lock, zinc" — a later order may be filled with a dimensionally different component that looks the same. Recording the part number and the performance data makes substitutions visible and keeps the assembly process stable across production runs.

Standardising a range pays for itself. Furniture manufacturers who specify one fittings family across a product range gain interchangeable parts, simpler service kits, fewer line items to stock, and a single set of load figures to design against. The operational saving from that standardisation usually exceeds the unit-price advantage of sourcing several near-identical fittings from different suppliers.

Browse the fittings families by part number

Conclusion

A furniture fittings catalog is organised by job, not by shape, and reading it that way is what prevents mismatched specification. Connectors join panels and are selected on visibility, disassembly, and the panel they go into; shelf supports and legs carry load and are selected on capacity and hole durability; screws are selected on thread form and head style for the material beneath; threaded inserts make joints serviceable; bumpers and caps protect finishes. Across every family the same handful of materials appear, and the same two questions decide the choice: what load, and what environment. Specify performance before appearance, demand load figures with their test conditions attached, expect corrosion to be specified as a class against a recognised standard, and buy interdependent parts as matched sets.

Key takeaways:

At Shaxi Hardware, every fitting in our catalog ships with documented material, finish, load rating and test conditions, panel compatibility, and corrosion classification — the data required to specify it correctly rather than approximately. Our ISO 9001 certified production facility manufactures connectors, shelf supports, legs, levellers, screws, and threaded components, with batch quality control on every production run, and our technical team supports catalogue selection and joint specification for furniture manufacturers and distributors across 40+ countries. Because a catalog is only useful if the numbers on it can be trusted — and we document every one.

Request our fittings catalog and technical data

Additional Resources

• [Link to: /collections/connecting-fittings – Connecting Fittings]
• [Link to: /collections/furniture-connecting-fittings – Furniture Connecting Fittings]
• [Link to: /collections/connecting-fittings-solutions – Complete Connecting Fitting Solutions]
• [Link to: /collections/shelf-support – Shelf Support Systems]
• [Link to: /collections/adjustable-connecting-leveller – Cabinet Legs & Levellers]
• [Link to: /collections/insert-nut-sockets – Threaded Inserts & Sockets]
• [Link to: /collections/chipboard-screw – Chipboard & Furniture Screws]
• [Link to: /collections/confirmat-screw – Confirmat Screws]
• [Link to: /collections/anti-collision-bumpers-caps – Bumpers & Protective Caps]
• [Link to: /collections/customized-non-standard-screws – Custom Fasteners to Specification]
• [Link to: /pages/about-us – ISO 9001 Manufacturing & Testing]
• [Link to: /pages/contact – Catalog & Technical Enquiries]

About Shaxi Hardware

With over 15 years of experience manufacturing furniture fittings, Shaxi Hardware serves brands, furniture manufacturers, and distributors across 40+ countries. Our ISO 9001 certified production facility manufactures connectors, shelf supports, cabinet legs and levellers, screws, threaded inserts, and protective fittings, with documented materials, load ratings, panel compatibility, and corrosion classifications for every part in the range. Batch quality control is conducted on every production run, and our technical team supports catalog selection and joint specification for any furniture application. Corrosion performance is specified against the EN 1670 classification, and third-party verification by SGS, TÜV, Intertek, or Bureau Veritas is welcomed.

Learn more about Shaxi Hardware