When I worked in the display industry, we did a lot of work with knock-down fittings. KD fittings allow you to build a project and ship it in a disassembled configuration; stacked flat panels, for example. When the pieces come out of the box, you then assemble using KD fittings as fasteners. One only needs to buy something from IKEA to know how that works. Almost everything IKEA sells comes packed in a box and needs assembly. Often there is an Allen wrench included to tighten the fittings or, perhaps, a Phillips screw driver is required.

This year at AWFS there were two things new in the realm of KD fittings that caught my eye. Over the course of my next two articles, I am going to show you both of them.

An AWFS Visionary New Product Award was given to Striplox for their innovative rapid assembly system. Striplox, a product line of the Australian Company Joinlox (www.joinlox.com), is distributed in the United States by several hardware distributors. As a result of the success of the Striplox system at and following AWFS, a press release stated that product will soon be warehoused within the continental U.S. The line was recently named a 2016 IWF Challengers semi-finalist.

The Striplox product line comes in a number of styles and sizes that will allow for the creation of strong, totally concealed joining. Imagine, if you will, simple replacements for traditional joining and fastening. Uses for Striplox, they say, include uses as brackets, screws, connectors, latches, and mountings.

To keep from being long winded, take the time to go to the Joinlox website and look under their products tab. There you will find some very good information as well as YouTube videos on how to use and install the different models. If you’re like me, a video is worth a thousand words. You will quickly understand how the Striplox fasteners work and how you install them.

Just as a tease, here is the link to one video about the Striplox Pro 55 SIV:  

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I have included pictures of all of the Striplox products for you to look at but I find the videos help a great deal in understanding how these products work. As you can see, there are even Striplox fasteners that mimic biscuit joinery with the added advantage of being able to assemble and disassemble the joint as needed.

The Striplox 90D 98 is a very interesting three-piece fastener that allows you to rapidly assemble the sides of a box while having the fastening system remain hidden inside.
The Striplox system provides us with some very practical and unique features that all cabinet makers should take a look at. Please feel free to explore this system further.

Until next time…spray on!