Blum Soft Close Hinges Article with Pictures for you to look at. I will look for me until someone else replies that has these on their cabinet doors. I will be having this type of hinge also on my doors and drawers since I love the soft close feature.

Here is a link that might be useful: Blum Soft Close Hinges Article with Pictures

Compact Version of the Blum Soft Close Hinge Article With Pictures

Here is a link that might be useful: Compact Version of the Blum Soft Close Hinge Article With Pictures

The newer hinges for cabinet doors come with a add-on "softener", if you will, that snaps onto the existing hardware. IME a lot of cabinet guys have soft-close on the brain for drawers, but not doors. These extra features cost extra money, separately, and can easily be added later at any time. "After-market" if you will.

All this presuming you have the newer Blum cabinet door hardware. Also not for the fancy, specialty 170-degree hinges and the like (there are a ton of different sorts I think).

FWIW I like the soft-close hinges but I'm not sure my life is substantially better for them; I'd probably be happier with the money in my bank account than on the hinges. I'm not po'd, don't want my money back. But if I knew then what I knew now I'd skip the soft-close on the doors, quite possible even the drawers as well... though probably not there. I guess they're helpful in keeping inner contents from shifting on arrival. ;)

Not disagree with Aliris, but to my understanding the 'new' Blum softclose hinges are in fact like the ones in the links provided earlier.

No 'add-on' plunger mechanism. The softclose is built into every hinge and there are little tiny switches to turn it on / off.

I have these in my kitchen, installed in May 2011 and they're great. You can choose to turn 2 of 3 hinges on for example, or all 3, or just 1 to adjust the way it closes.

We have them throughout our nearly four year-old kitchen (they look just like the one's in lynn's 2nd pic) and I guess I like them -- I don't dislike them. I don't value them the way I value the feature on the drawers. Also, my partner has become l-a-z-y and now won't close cabs in the rest of the (non-soft close) house -- his brain expects everything to close itself, it would appear .... They're cher and if you're paying for them make sure you have them!

methinks the blum web site has information relevant to the OP.

someone might point to various places inside the blum web site.
There might be more than one type of Blum thingie.

It would not surprise me to find out that the Ikea version of Blum's thingie is one version (which Ikea has "bought" factory and all), and that a web search that i might do would produce different looking images since Blum distributors sell the current version that Blum makes. It's complicated or it isn't; it depends.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Blum is not the only source of sof close thingies.

My Blum soft close thingies were gadgets that blopped onto the hinge like ALiris describes. They weren't installed until some time after the cabinets.

Just ask the cabinet guy. He can either do the add on thingie or replace the hinges.

My soft close cabinet door hinges are also Blum, and a clip add on to the hinge.

oops - sorry if I misled anyone. It seems sensible to go straight to the source, as suggested. When I had a question about hardware I talked with them directly at Blum and emailed a photo; they were very accommodating.

I have to say their answer was strangely contradictory and shifting as well, but they did try. Makes you wonder ... (mine was a question about the 170-degree hinge).

Moreover, my softclose hinges don't even look like what I was claiming above (geesh); they're not like yours either, with that plastic bit on the Rockler website. I think Blum makes a lot a lot a lot of hinges.

Here are a couple of pics of the so called, Soft Close Hinges.

http://i1011.photobucket.com/albums/af233/flatman/Kitchen%20Oct%202011/c9edc7f1.png

I contacted Blum yesterdy nd sent them a picture of my hinges..Turns out that th soft close that we were given needs to be on both hinges of every door, not just one hinge in our case. Here is th email straight from Blum.

Your doors should have both hinges with this soft close, �The hinge may have a cover cap to cover up the
screws holes on your door. �Again, your hinge will look like the hinge in the picture I attached in the previous email. �Maybe, you
need to check with the company that installed your cabinets. �Make sure the deactivation button is on.

Best Regards,

Blum Customer Service
Blum, Inc.
704-827-1345
fax: 704-827-8464
www.blum.com
www.dynamicspace.us

cflaherty, I am glad we all helped and finally Blum let you know that the installer is missing part of the hinge. Please let us know how this is resolved.

turns out after looking at the list of products on our estimate the cab maker charged us for 2 SC hinges per door but only gave us one per door. the Cab maker claims that the folks he ordered the Blum hinges thru said he only needed to use one per door...I told him Blum says you need 2!
This is not the only thing he has been dishonest about. He wrote down in our estimate and told me and the Contractor he was using Blum Leg Levelers..turns out he used Richielue (spl??) and made a $22 profit on each set of 4 (we think that is not only highway robbery but also dishonesty!)
UGH! now we really don't trust this guy! Thank goodness we still owe him about $7,000...probably less now! I am gaining Wisdom I guess.

Richelieu.com if you find your part number at Richelieu.com you can get its price by web searching. Blum parts too.

cf

Sorry to hear about your dishonest contractor, it is a giant leap of faith to have someone come in your home & perform related work. Even with contracts things can still go awry - You are right to not trust much of this person now - hold the $ and point out the differences in proposed work vs what he has done. In the end if he doesn't want to make it whole, you have every right to calculate what you can with hold from final payment.

This is why I never hire contractors. I much prefer to work directly with the people doing the work.

The people I finally dealt with on my custom cabinets were great - small shop in an industrial area. The guy who sold me the package also builds the cabinets with one or two other guys. One of the guys who builds the cabinets and paints them was the installer (one man installation).

Always try to deal directly with the person who is going to do the actual work - you end up with better product and spend less money to boot.

I'd make the contractor or cabinet maker or whoever you signed the deal with on the cabinets replace all the hinges with current technology BLUM soft close hinges - ALL of them. Or find a supplier for the BLUM hinges (Richelieu sells them here in Canada) and withhold that much from your final payment to them, plus $40 per door minimum for labor fees to replace them all.

Play hardball - it's your money, it's your house, it's your deal. Hold them to every letter of the deal you signed - don't pay a penny more, and hold back on whatever they skimped on.

The Cabinet Maker was hired by me (homeowner). Huge mistake on my part. He has been the only issue thru this entire Reno. The guy doing most of the work (ed) has been AMAZING! He even said that he would have never taken the job had he knew the cabinet guy . Ed has already lost a ton of money bc of the cab guy. I feel bad for him and he feels bad for me. Lol