Recently I received my December issue of Popular Woodworking magazine.  While looking at it during lunch, one of my woodworking co-workers stopped to look at Glen Huey’s Line & Berry Chest of Drawers that graced the cover. 

 (Photo provided by PopularWoodworking.com) 

After thumbing through the article he smiled & said it must be nice!  Puzzled I took the bait & asked, “What do you mean?”

That sparked a discussion about why one should use/buy quality lumber & hardware on projects & then suddenly his point finally surfaced.  “Did you see the price of that hardware?” he blurted out. 

However, I didn’t need to look because I had spoken to Glen while he was building the piece & knew that might be a sticking point to a lot of woodworkers. 

But this got me thinking that there has to be another option that didn’t involve hardware being purchased at a big box store.  So I decided to contact Horton Brasses & had them send me their hardware so I could do a little comparison.

Once I received the package of hardware, I gave Glen a call.  I told him I wanted to do a comparison of both sets of hardware & asked if I could stop by the shop that Saturday to take a closer look at the hardware he used.

That Saturday, when I arrived at the shop, Glen was all smiles.  He suggested that we pull his hardware from one drawer & install what I brought so we can compare them side by side on the finished piece. 

Horton Brasses H-115 and H-115E 

Well, the first thing we did was put both versions of the hardware down side by side.  (Horton Brasses hardware on the left, Ball & Ball on the right.)

The first thing I noticed off the bat was that the hardware used in the article looked beefier where the Horton Brasses hardware looked more dainty or delicate. 

Next, we measured them.   I was surprised that the difference in thickness was only .01” So we started handling the hardware.  I noticed that the Horton hardware was stamped where the other was cast. 

It was then that we noticed that the chasing on article hardware was done by hand.  It looked different from piece to piece.  However, the Horton’s chasing looked very uniform.

From here we installed the hardware on the top two drawers & stacked them for a better look.  

Photo shows Horton Brasses on the bottom

My first thought after we took a step back to look was that the hardware used in the article made the piece look like it was made for a guy where the Horton Brasses hardware looked like the piece was commissioned for a woman.

The last part of this comparison came down to price.  Comparing the two we see the following.

Armed with the price difference of $177.62 & my crude but viewable photos to show a comparison, I went back in to work to show my troubled co-worker that not only was I able to find him an alternative hardware source that was attractive visually, but it would also fit his budget.

He was shocked at what I found & I broke into another discussion of how you don’t always have to use the same hardware & wood used in books & magazines, but that’s another article for another day…