Child Safety Locks for CraftMaid Drawers

[Dennis Putnam]

I have some Craftmaid cabinets that I need to child proof. The standard big box store locks to not work with Craftmaid. My searching has come up with nothing. Has anyone found any child proof latches that will fit Craftmaid? TIA.

[Malcolm McLeod]

I have some Craftmaid cabinets that I need to child proof. The standard big box store locks to not work with Craftmaid. My searching has come up with nothing. Has anyone found any child proof latches that will fit Craftmaid? TIA.

Kraftmaid..?? What style cabinets? Cabinet doors? Overlay? Full? Partial? Inset? Or, drawers?

Several styles of latches are available - Slide on; spring catch, or flex catch. Which have you tried.

(I used to design and manufacture them about 3 lifetimes ago...). Look at Safety 1st; they bought nearly everyone else in the sector.

[George Bokros]

Have you tried contacting Kraft Maid?

[Matt Day]

I have Kraftmaid cabinets. I used safety First magnetic system on the doors which is awesome, and on lower drawers i used the simple push down to open style ones, and had to add a 3/4” spacer to the drawer.

[Lee Schierer]

When our children were young we used safety latches similar to these on cabinets and drawers.
safety.jpg
Our kids were exceptionally bright and they never figured out how to defeat them. We currently have Kraftmaid cabinets in our kitchen and I see no reason why this type of latch would not work on them.

[Matt Day]

I have the ones Lee mentions on my lower drawers, problem is kids can get their fingers pinched.

[Dennis Putnam]

Have you tried contacting Kraft Maid?

Yes. They were no help at all.

[Dennis Putnam]

These are drawers. I don't have access to them now so I can't provide a picture but hopefully and I can describe the problem. The drawers consist of the drawer box with a separate front panel attached. The drawer box has very little clearance between it and the cabinet frame. Thus there is no place to attach the clip part of the safety latch to the cabinet frame. It would have to somehow attach to the inside of the cabinet frame and hang below the opening to catch the latch at a right angle. Then there is no place to attach the latch itself other than the inside of the drawer box again at a right angle. The standard latches I found are designed to mount under the cabinet frame rather than behind and on top of the drawer front (no right angle attachment). I think they assume the drawer front attaches to the side panels of the drawer frame with no front panel as part of the box. In addition the latch would have to be extremely long to clear the 2 thicknesses of panel (3/4" each) plus the countertop overhang plus enough room for a finger to unlatch it. I figure at least 4 1/2". The ones I've found are only a couple of inches ignoring the fact that they would not mount anyway.

[Malcolm McLeod]

These are drawers. ..... The drawer box has very little clearance between it and the cabinet frame. Thus there is no place to attach the clip part ...
Then there is no place to attach the latch itself other than the inside of the drawer box again at a right angle. ...
In addition the latch would have to be extremely long to clear the 2 thicknesses of panel (3/4" each) plus the countertop overhang plus enough room for a finger to unlatch it. ...

IF I am following you properly... Ditch the clip that mounts on the face frame (this gets around the tight clearances between drawer box and frame. Result won't have the 'undercut' catch, but should be better than nothing. Mount the latch on the interior of the drawer box, such that the hook catches on the inside of the face frame. Most of the latches like Lee's pic shows are long enough so that they'll span the 3/4 face frame + typical counter overhang + allow for fingers.

If you have atypical counter overhang, all bets are off. ...Maybe just install 50 mortise locks?? Or move all the sharps and swallows and don't-touch-that's up, out of reach?

[Matt Day]

Post pictures when you can.