Bullet catch installation tips

[Brian Penning]

Any tips on installing these little devils?
Appears to me that there's little room for error.
Especially when I have 2 doors that meet in the centre as in an armoire or TV cabinet that has no centre stile.
TIA

http://www.leevalley.com/images/item/hardware/boxhardware/01b1008g3.jpg

[Mitchell Andrus]

Make a dowel with a point just long enough to jab a mark when the door is closed and press the door a bit. Leave the hinges just a little loose. I like to put the ball on the carcass and the detent on the door.

Test fitting can be done with the actual part. Just test install with a bit of dental floss tied around them if there's a ridge or slung underneath so you can pull them back out. Test this technique on scrap first, of course.
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[glenn bradley]

I just measure to where I want the center point of each piece of the catch/strike to be but, I like the idea of Mitchell's method. Kinda like dowel-centers . . . I'm gonna give that a try next time.

[Mike Henderson]

Getting them located is not a problem for me but getting the catch (not the ball) to the correct depth is a challenge.

I put the ball parts in the visible part of the cabinet (see pix) and the indent in the door. Positioning the ball parts is no problem. I mark where I want the doors to close to, then go in by half the thickness of the doors. I want the ball pieces to hit the doors in the middle of the stile so I mark where the doors meet and measure in by half the stile width. Then I push the ball pieces in until the ridge around the ball is flush with the surface of the wood. That's easy. Since the ball pieces are visible, I want them to look nice (as far as depth) and be exactly the same.

The hard part is how far in to put the detent part in the door. I can mark the proper location on the stile - you have some leeway side-to-side because of the width of the detent part but they need to be centered and the same on both doors.

My problem was how far to push the detent parts into the hole. I didn't push them in all the way and did a test fit of the door. Then, using a brass hammer, I'd tap them further in until I got the fit I wanted. The defect in my approach is that the detent parts are not glued in - they're held by friction and over time they could go further in. But they were so tight I couldn't have pulled them out with dental floss.

But with my approach, you only get one chance. If you tap the detent part in too far you're in trouble. If I ran into that problem, I planned to drill a hole in the detent and thread in a screw so I could grab it and pull the part back out. Luckily, I didn't have to do that.

Added note: I put the detents at the bottom of the door so they're not visible - only the balls are visible.

Mike

[Conrad Fiore]

I put the ball in the carcass also. When I bore the hole for the ball, I drill a 1/16 hole thru the center out the bottom. I can then use a rod to adjust the height of the ball when I glue it in later. I then mount the door and put a piece of carbon paper face up over the ball. Close the door and a line will be drawn on the bottom of the door. Where the line stops is the center of the cup. When ready to install the hardware, glue in the cup first and orient the cup groove with the door rail. Next glue in the ball and push it in a little deeper than needed. Use the rod thru the bottom hole to push the ball up until you get the amount of resistance you want for the ball to snap into the cup groove.

[Mike Henderson]

Just an added comment. I think you have to put the ball in the carcass because if you put the ball in the door, it would drag across the carcass and mark the wood - within a short time.

I like Conrad's idea, but it was important to me to have the two balls identical for visual appeal. That is, both balls exactly the same height and the brass part flush with the wood.

Mike