Retrofitting Ikea cabinet door dampers to old Ikea cabinets and non-Ikea cabinets

I recently went to Ikea to buy a new cabinet, and noticed that all of their display models now have these soft-close dampers that prevent the cabinet door from slamming. The damper catches the door as it closes, and allows it only to close the last couple inches very slowly. Ikea sells the door dampers ("Integral Door Damper" 2/$4.99) separately from the cabinets. I wondered if the dampers could be adapted to my existing Ikea cabinets. I bought some and found that old-style Ikea hinges can easily be modified to accomodate the dampers.

Left: Old-style Ikea hinge Center: New-style Ikea hinge Right: Door damper

Note that the hole between the adjustment screws in the new hinge is very rectangular, while the hole in the old-style hinge is rounded. The door damper needs to mount in a rectangular hole.
Less than one minute with a Dremel and 1/8" carbide die grinder bit made the hole in the old hinge much more rectangular.

The door damper snaps into the rectangular hole and works perfectly.


Next, I thought that I might be able to use the door dampers for non-Ikea cabinets and also Ikea cabinets that do not use the standard 125* hinge.

I started by making some mounting brackets out of shelving support rod. This stuff shows up in every hardware store. I used a milling machine to cut the pattern out, but it would certainly be possible to use a dremel. The large rectangular hole matches the size of the hole in Ikea's hinges.Next, I mounted the bracket to the interior of the cabinet with two screws. The top-side of this particular cabinet would not allow such mounting, so I mounted it on the bottom.

Snap the door damper into place, and voila! The door now closes silently. This method would work for nearly any kind of cabinet. The dampers cost only $2.50/each from Ikea, and the homemade mounting brackets are even less expensive.