India classifies door hardware with eight-digit tariff items, the same digits that appear as the HSN code on a GST invoice. Locks and keys are heading 8301; hinges, handles, bolts and other building fittings are 8302, and so are automatic door closers, which have their own item, 8302 60 00. Hinges split by material: steel 8302 10 10, brass 8302 10 20, other 8302 10 90. This page lists every item under both headings as printed in the CBIC tariff, places our product categories against them, and explains how to find the duty that applies without trusting a rate copied from somewhere else.
An exit device is chosen twice: once for the people who will use it, and once for how it latches the door. Rim devices latch at one point into the frame and suit single doors and pairs with a mullion. Surface and concealed vertical rods latch at the head and the floor and suit pairs without a mullion, at the cost of a floor strike to keep clear. Mortise devices latch through a lock case in the door edge. This guide sets out where each fits, what EN 1125 and UL 305 say about the configuration, and which of our devices is which.
Many annual fire door inspection findings are hardware rather than the door itself: a closer that no longer latches the leaf, a latch that misses its strike, a door wedged open, a label painted over, a replacement part that was never rated, a pair that closes in the wrong order. This guide takes each finding in turn, under NFPA 80 in the United States and the EN standards and national rules in Europe, and says what normally puts it right.
Importing locks, hinges and other door hardware from China into Mexico follows a fixed public procedure: an active RFC and registration in the SAT's Padrón de Importadores, a customs broker authorized through an encargo conferido, a pedimento under the correct fracción arancelaria, the tariff in force in 2026 for countries without a trade agreement with Mexico, NOM-050 commercial labeling where it applies, origin documents and an Incoterm that matches who imports. This guide walks through each step without quoting rates, because the rate that counts is the one in force for your fracción when you import.
A "copper hinge" that carries a door is brass, copper alloyed with zinc; antique copper is a finish, not a metal. Two of our hinges publish brass as their material: the B024, offered from 2.0 to 3.5mm thick, and the B025. This page explains what the phrase can mean and what to write on the order so the hinge that arrives is the one you meant.
59 knob and lever locks for bored doors, in four families: tubular, light-duty cylindrical, heavy-duty cylindrical and commercial. Side by side from their specification rows, with the one row that does not separate them, and the rows that do.
37 records sit in our panic exit device family, and only 23 of them are exit devices. Apart from the iron 315 touch bar and the ABS-and-aluminum 311, every one has an aluminum alloy body and an iron push bar, so the three tables (single doors, pairs, special purposes) compare what differs: length, latching and door, with the missing rows named.
33 of our mortise lock cases publish both a backset and a center distance. Here they are in two tables, narrow-stile and standard, with the naming traps and the gaps stated plainly.
Two numbers decide whether a replacement lock drops into a door that is already machined: the backset and the door thickness range. This is what our published catalog actually carries (counted from the records rather than quoted from a brochure) with the imperial equivalents, the measuring method, and the one dimension that is not a backset and gets confused with it.
Above roughly 37% zinc, brass becomes more vulnerable to dezincification, so a cylinder on an external door, above all near the coast, should be DZR brass (CZ132 or CW602N); a dry interior door does not need it. This page sets out the brasses used in door hardware, explains why lead is in most of them and what the low-lead alternatives cost, describes dezincification and where DZR brass is genuinely required, separates brass from bronze, and counts what our own catalog publishes.
A genuine test certificate carries 7 parts: the issuing laboratory with its address, its accreditation reference, the standard with its year, a report or certificate number, the date of issue and validity, the scope of application, and the tested configuration. The scope is the part most often missing, and checking all 7 takes about 5 minutes. This page also explains accreditation versus certification and CE marking with a Declaration of Performance, lists 6 red flags, and states what we hold: our 307 and 311 exit devices do not hold certificates today, and until certificate numbers exist we claim no rating for them.
Chrome is a thin top layer over nickel, which is why nickel decides how it looks and how long it lasts. This page explains the plating stack, separates polished chrome from satin chrome from satin nickel by the property that actually distinguishes them, gives the codes, and shows from our own 336 finish rows why a finish written as a name rather than a code cannot be reordered.
Pick a lock function from 2 questions: who may come in from outside, and how the person inside gets out, which must be without a key and in one motion. Corridors take passage, main entrances take entrance (keyed outside), WCs take privacy, storerooms take storeroom, classrooms take classroom and escape stairs take an exit device. This page gives the full decision table by room, the 3 function errors that become life-safety problems, such as a double-cylinder deadbolt on an escape route, and how many models of each function our catalog carries.
Door hardware is a weight-limited cargo, not a volume-limited one. Worked from our own shipping worksheet: the median carton density is 614 kg per cubic meter, which is above the point where a 40-foot container runs out of payload before it runs out of space. The high cube buys about 13 per cent more volume and, for this cargo, no more hardware.
EN 1670 grades door hardware corrosion resistance from 0 to 5, and each grade is a number of hours in a neutral salt spray cabinet. This page gives the hours for every grade, explains what ASTM B117 and ANSI/BHMA A156.18 do on the other side of the Atlantic, names the three environments where a grade chosen by habit fails, and is honest about what a cabinet test cannot predict.
We publish 200,000 cycles on 132 models, and our records do not yet name the standard behind that figure. That matters: 200,000 cycles is the top durability category in EN 1906 and only the entry grade in ANSI/BHMA A156.2. This page sets out what a cycle test actually is, what each scale asks for, what "institutional grade" means on each, and why a cycle count is not a grade until its standard is named.
"Is it interchangeable?" is answered by seven dimensions, and two of them are the ones almost nobody publishes. This page lists them in the order they cause failures, explains why matching the backset is not enough, sets out what to send a factory when you want a drop-in for a discontinued lock, and counts how many of our own 309 lock products publish each dimension, including the two at three per cent.
A door closer mounts in 4 standard ways: regular arm (pull side, the most efficient, with the arm in the opening), top jamb (on the frame, push side, for glazed or narrow-stile doors), parallel arm (push side, arm tucked against the door, the institutional choice) and slide track (the flattest). Parallel arm gives the closer less leverage, so a closer sized for a regular arm can stop latching the door when mounted parallel: if parallel arm is likely, say so when the power size is chosen. This page also covers reinforcement, handing and backcheck.
A door closer is specified by a power size, and the power size is derived from the door (its leaf width and its mass) not from the opening or the building type. This page sets out the EN 1154 size ladder with the leaf widths each covers, how the ANSI/BHMA A156.4 approach differs, the three adjustments that are not the power size, and the accessibility constraint that overrides all of it.
Almost every product in a door hardware catalog classifies under one of two HS headings: 8301 for locks and keys, 8302 for mountings and fittings. This page sets out the subheadings under each, names the four that are most often got wrong (door closers, keys shipped separately, parts, and furniture versus building fittings) and explains exactly where the internationally agreed code ends and your own country's begins.
A door arrives on site "prepped", and whether the lock fits is decided by holes cut weeks earlier in another factory. This page sets out the standard bored-lock and mortise-lock preparations with their dimensions, explains the ANSI/BHMA A115 series that governs them, and lists the five things a purchase order has to say before a door manufacturer can cut anything.
Each half of a euro cylinder is half the door thickness plus the escutcheon depth on that side, rounded up to the 5mm ladder that starts at 27.5mm: a 40mm door with 4mm escutcheons comes to 55mm and is ordered as 56mm. This page gives the calculation, a door-thickness lookup table worked against the nine lengths we actually publish, explains why a thin door still gets a protruding cylinder, and shows what changes when the lock case is not centered in the leaf.
Two European standards cover escape hardware and they are chosen by who uses the building, not by how important the door is. This page explains what separates EN 1125 from EN 179, gives the occupancy test that decides between them, decodes the classification digits, lists the three mistakes that produce a non-compliant opening, and states what our own exit range does and does not hold.
Specifiers ask for a conversion table between EN and ANSI/BHMA door hardware standards. What exists is a scope map, not an equivalence: the two systems classify different properties, and a product certified to one carries no automatic claim under the other. This page sets out which standard covers which product family on each side, what each one measures, and the four places the mapping genuinely breaks.
A euro cylinder is described by two numbers, and getting them the wrong way round is the commonest ordering error in door hardware. This is the full size chart to EN 1303 and DIN 18252 geometry, the eight overall lengths we publish, the split combinations that add up to each one, and the measurement that decides which you need.
The bar inside always lets people out; the outside trim decides who gets in, whether the door can be held unlocked in business hours, and whether it still complies in a fire. Dogging, which holds the latch retracted, is forbidden on any fire exit device, because a fire door works by staying latched. This page compares every outside trim function, the 4 device types and the trims each takes, mechanical versus cylinder dogging, passage and classroom functions door by door, and what our own trim records publish.
A finish code on a purchase order decides what arrives, and four pairs of codes in common use are reversals of each other. This is the reference: the 23 codes our catalog uses, how they line up with BHMA 600-series and US26x numbers, the pairs that get transposed, and a count of how inconsistently our own catalog spells them.
Everything fixed to or cut into a fire door has to be part of the tested assembly: the hinges, the lock or latch, the closer, intumescent and smoke seals, exit devices, glazing and beads, flush bolts and coordinators on pairs, and the fixings. A certificate covers only the configuration and scope that were tested, and an EN 1634-1 classification is not a UL 10C listing. Our 307 and 311 exit devices do not hold certificates today; until certificate numbers exist we do not claim a fire rating for them.
Our glass fittings take glass from 8mm to 14mm, each model within its own stated range, and every hole and cut-out must be made before the glass is toughened, because after toughening it cannot be drilled. This page gives the glass thickness ranges our fittings actually accept, explains the glass gap dimension and the corner radius on a cut-out, sets out why every hole must be made before toughening, and lists what has to be on the glass shop drawing before anybody orders anything.
Survey the doors, not the drawings, and record 14 fields per leaf. Fields 1 to 7 and 12 to 14 come from the corridor with a caliper and a phone; fields 8, 9 and 11 need the lock or cylinder out, which is why sampling exists. This page lists the 14 fields and why each one decides an order, gives a sampling rule by door type, and shows how the survey becomes an order.
A warranty is decided by its exclusions, not its number of years, and 5 exclusions defeat most claims: improper installation (the largest by far), an unsuitable environment such as a 201 stainless lever on a coastal door, the wrong cleaner on a plated finish, modification, and ordinary wear. This page separates warranty from guarantee and statutory rights, sets out what a successful claim contains, and says what a factory can honestly promise about a part it will never see again.
Two questions decide a hinge specification: what grade, and how many. EN 1935 answers the first with grades 1 to 14 tied to a tested door mass; ANSI/BHMA A156.1 answers it with a weight class and a frequency. Neither answers the second, which is governed by leaf height and mass. This page sets out both ladders, the count rule, and the three failure modes that come from getting the count right and the grade wrong.
A keyway is open, restricted or patented. Open blanks are sold everywhere and a copy takes 2 minutes; restricted blanks reach only authorized dealers, a contractual control; patented blanks are a legal monopoly that ends when the patent expires, so a system specified years ago may no longer be protected. None of the three makes a cylinder harder to pick or drill. This page also lists what to decide before a master key system is cut.
A straight lever handle looks cleaner than a returned one and is rejected on most commercial specifications, for a reason that has nothing to do with taste. This page explains what lever return is, the safety and accessibility requirements behind it, why a knob fails accessibility where a lever passes, and how to read the eight fields of an EN 1906 handle classification instead of quoting only the first one.
A master key system has up to 5 levels (GGMK, GMK, MK, SMK and the change key), and most buildings need 3 at most. Every extra level and every cross-keyed door spends combinations from a finite pool, which is why systems run out. This page sets out the hierarchy, the 5 questions to answer before a cylinder is cut, vertical versus horizontal designs, and how to reserve room for the building to grow.
"Send the material certificate" means four different documents, and the difference between them is who signed it and whether the test was on your metal. This page sets out the EN 10204 document types, explains heat numbers and where the chain of custody genuinely breaks in small hardware, separates material traceability from RoHS and REACH compliance, and says which of these a door hardware factory can honestly provide.
A RAL number sets the hue only: gloss is specified separately (ISO 2813), architectural powder film typically runs 60–80 µm, and threads must be masked because a coated M5 thread may not take an M5 screw. This page explains what RAL specifies and what it leaves open, why pretreatment decides whether a coating survives, where powder coating fails on hardware geometry, which tests are worth citing, and the four lines that make a finish orderable.
5 questions separate a factory from a trading company or a broker: which models do you make yourselves; can you change the backset on this model, and what would the tooling cost; who does your plating; what is the minimum in one finish, and why; and can we have the dimensioned drawing. A factory answers each at once or with a reason. This page also lists what can be verified independently and what a first order should be.
Ask for a pre-production sample whenever anything differs from the catalog, and make it a golden sample: two identical pieces signed and dated by both parties, one sealed with each side, with a reference number on the purchase order. A sample cannot show batch consistency, corrosion resistance or life at 200,000 cycles; those need a sampling plan and test reports. This page also lists what to measure on a lock, handle, hinge, closer and glass fitting, and how to write an inspection standard a third-party inspector can apply.
A door hardware specification is a three-part document with a fixed shape, and most of the money lost on a hardware package is lost by putting the right sentence in the wrong part. This page sets out what belongs in Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3, shows how a hardware set is written so a factory can quote it without a phone call, and names the four clauses that quietly decide the price.
The spindle is the cheapest part of a door handle set and the one that most often makes a shipment unusable. Three numbers decide whether a handle will turn a lock: the square size, the spindle length, and whether the spindle is solid or split. This page sets out all three, gives the length formula, and shows what our own catalog actually publishes.
201, 304 and 316 look identical in the hand and behave very differently on a building. This page sets out what separates them chemically, where each belongs, what the cost difference actually is, and then does the uncomfortable part, counts how many of our own 313 stainless products name a grade at all, and explains why a specification that says "304/201" has answered nothing.
North America has two standard strike sizes: the ANSI strike, 4-7/8 × 1-1/4in (about 124 × 32mm), for commercial hollow metal frames, and the T-strike, 2-3/4 × 1-1/8in (about 70 × 29mm), for wood jambs, and one cannot replace the other without reworking the frame. This page also covers European keeps, how to work out lip length, square versus radius corners, and why a security upgrade that stops at the lock has upgraded nothing.
A door hardware submittal package has 5 parts: the hardware schedule by opening, a datasheet per catalog number, dimensioned shop drawings, test evidence from an accredited laboratory, and the keying schedule where the project has one. It comes back for 4 omissions: finish names without codes, handing without its convention, a marketing claim where a certificate should be, and no preparation data. From us, drawings, specifications and the catalog are published; a spec export and test documents are sent on request; BIM families and editable CAD are not available.
Asking a hardware factory for "the CAD" produces a different file in every country, and half the time the file you get cannot do the job you wanted it for. This page separates the three kinds of drawing that answer three different questions, compares the formats and what each one is really for, explains why a 3D solid often does not exist even at a competent factory, and states our own drawing coverage as a number rather than a promise.
"Universal" covers three different things: non-handed (no hand at all, like most butt hinges, plain levers and cylinders), field-reversible (ships in one hand and is turned on site, like most cylindrical, tubular and mortise latches) and factory-handed (one hand only). On a large order, ask for the product supplied reversed to hand and state the split, for example "24 LH, 16 RH". This page also names the four products that are handed when people assume they are not.
Zinc alloy (zamak, mostly Zamak 3 or Zamak 5, about 4% aluminum) is 28% of the material rows in our catalog, second only to stainless steel at 46%, and buyers distrust it mostly for reasons that describe bad castings rather than the material. This page explains what zamak is, what die casting is genuinely good at, the four distinct ways a poor zinc part fails, where zinc should never be used at all, and what to ask a factory so the answer means something.
