Blum70.0532, Dowel, 8.6 mm x 10.6 mm, For Blum Hinges (Pack of 25)

I'm fixing up an old set of cabinets with some new IKEA doors. The doors come with larger predrilled holes to use IKEA's snap-in hinges, but I didn't want to deal with the hassle of installing (or buying) that many, and wanted to reuse my existing ones. These dowels allow the use of standard hinge bolts/screws.They are a bit big and you have to really hit them with a hammer to get them in, and if you don't do that perfectly straight, it cracks the material around the door a bit, but that damage seems only cosmetic (the hinges are totally secure).

it's one of those remodeling situations: you thought you have everything planned out down to the T, you have all the supplies and materials, and you are going to work on this, this, and that on this day, and that day, and by XXX day, the project concludes, everything back to normal, kitchen looking fresh as new. THEN, somewhere along the line, you realized either due to miscalculation or misplacement, you are short of a couple of these cabinet door hinge dowels! Now none of the remaining cabinet doors can be installed. These little things are not carried by big chain home improvement stores like Home Depot, so you find yourself here, place an order, thinking "dang, I don't want to pay for expedited shipping, now it's going to take at least 5 business days for them to arrive to resume the project." and you look at the unfinished kitchen project feeling defeated because you messed up.Except, guess what? the seller (MJP shop) offers free shipping with this product (not subject to Amazon's free-when-its-$25-or-more), and via USPS (though not usually the speediest nor most reliable...), and I received mine mere 2 business days after placing the order, and it's on a Saturday! I received my dowels, immediately put them to work, 2 hours later, all my remaining cabinet doors are installed properly, and the cabinet part of my kitchen remodeling is finished as I'm writing this review. Total project down-time: only 2 days!

The product is as described and as expected. Delivered earlier than expected. Reliable supplier.

So I bought some kitchen cabinet doors with pre-drilled holes, but for some weird reason, the soft-close hinges that they sell at Home Depot don't come with dowels. The <i>non</i>-soft-close ones do, but the soft-close ones that I wanted didn't. Who knows why.So I bought these dowels and that fixed the problem. My only gripe is that they did not fit at first; I had to use a drill to widen the holes ever so slightly before I could cram them in with a few hammer taps. Maybe because I painted the doors they swelled a bit? This was a minor thing and easily fixed, and they worked great in the end, but be aware that this could be an issue.

I have factory made cabinet doors with standard holes. After finishing the doors, I put these "dowels" into the holes. I expected them to be a soft enough plastic to push them into the holes, but every one required a hammer. And despite my best efforts (as a near professional level of DIY skill) these are so tight that hammering them in straight and carefully still cracked the wood around the hole.Do they work? Yes. But... either they should be made of a softer plastic or they should be slightly smaller in diameter. The screw being inserted should be reasonably expected to expand the "dowel" to make it grip tightly as with any plastic anchor. And believe it or not, I actually broke the head off a screw when it was snug inside one of these dowels. That should tell you how hard the plastic is!