Furniture and Architectural
Hardware

Premium motion

How do you add value to a cabinet opening mechanism? By taking the standard motion it offers and making it smoother, safer, easier and more controlled. Sugatsune delivers premium quality motion via our lid stays in three different ways:

• Soft Close: Soft Close technology is designed to keep gravity in check and protect furniture and fingers from unnecessary slamming. The concept centres on catching motion and slowing it down to a smooth, controlled finish. As well as an extensive range of cabinet stays fitted with our patented Lapcon soft close technology, our LAD dampers are also ideal for heavyweight counter flaps and can be retrofitted to units without having to replace existing hinges.
• Free Stop: BLocking catches that hold a lid or flap open are a common feature of stays used in bureaus, trunks, Ottomans, kitchen storage units and more. However, such catches usually only hold a flap open in one position. By building a torque mechanism into the stay, our products mean lids and flaps can instead be held open at any angle required.
• Lift Assist: Just as soft down motion technology helps to ensure lids and flaps shut in a smooth, controlled manner, lift assist creates a feather-light feel when opening even the heaviest covers. We use spring mechanisms to provide an additional force as soon as a cover is lifted or pulled forward.

Lapcon stays

Soft close has become a Sugatsune signature, and Lapcon is the patented technology that delivers it. Built around a revolutionary rotary damper design, Lapcon has the advantage of being easily slotted into a wide range of components, delivering pristine controlled motion and safety benefits to cabinets and fitted architectural systems.

Our ‘soft down’ range of Lapcon stays provides the smoothest opening and closing solution imaginable – no more top-opening lids and upward opening flaps crashing closed with a bang, no more risk of a downward opening flap hitting someone as it falls with unexpected speed. But even take those benefits away, and the graceful movement a Lapcon stay provides is something to be valued in its own right.

We supply soft down stays designed specifically for downward opening, upward opening and top opening applications. Most can be paired with concealed hinges or single-knuckle hinges, although our soft down stays for downward opening flaps can also work with drop hinges.

Our heavy duty soft down stays include products that can support maximum weights of up to 24kg per pair, while our adjustable soft down stays allow the opening angle to be fixed anywhere between 70 and 105 degrees.

A crucial feature of our Lapcon soft down range is that most products deliver more than just controlled motion. We supply stays for upward opening flaps and lids that also feature free stop, allowing the door to be held open at any chosen angle. And not only do our soft down stays for downward opening flaps not create any resistance when you are lifting to close, we also offer products that provide lift assist. This includes self close and self opening stays which take full control of the motion when opened slightly.

Unique Motion

In kitchens, offices and living spaces, upward opening flaps are a popular solution for closing off overhead storage spaces. The practical advantages over lateral opening doors or downward opening flaps are that handles can be positioned at the bottom of the panel to remain within reach. Lifting the flap upwards also takes it out of the way to provide better access to the cabinet.

Stays are routinely deployed to hold upward opening overhead doors in place while access is needed. But always keen to explore new possibilities, we looked at these stays with fresh eyes and asked – how can we reimagine the stay concept not just to provide support, but to improve accessibility?

AILERON

Our ELAN products demonstrate perfectly the journey we’ve been on with our thinking. The SLS-ELAN does what you would expect from a reliable overhead flap stay – it holds the door securely open at 90 degrees. But the rest of the range takes things further. The EZS-ELAN and SLU-ELAN, for example, add unique motion which means no hinges are required. The EZS provides an ‘up and over’ mechanism which holds the flap on top of the cabinet, while the SLU swings the flap upwards to sit flush with surfaces above. If space above or on top of the cabinet is an issue, the HBF-ELAN provides a bi-fold mechanism.

All of these products feature soft close, lift assist and free stop and have passed a minimum of 30,000 test cycles.

Elsewhere in the catalogue, our OV products extend the ‘up and over’ concept, adding a slide rail so the open flap can be pushed back to sit fully flush on top of the cabinet. We call this a ‘Flipper Door’ system, designed to maximise access and give the option of leaving cabinets open for an extended period of time. We also offer an inset ‘Receding Door’ alternative which tucks the open flap inside the cabinet rather than on top of it.