Bifix

Time Comparison: fitting Adhesive caps vs Bifix or Stemfix caps

Adhesive caps claim to be up to 6 times faster to apply! This was NOT what a major Australian nationwide kitchen manuafcturer found in a series of supervised trials though. In fact, the results were clearly (by a substantial margin) in favour of the press-in caps.

	Bifix Caps	Stemfix Caps	Adhesive Caps*
Kitchen 1	6 min 8 sec	6 min 54 sec	6 min 12 sec (7 min 28 sec)
Kitchen 2	8 min 14 sec	9 min 2 sec	8 min 11 sec (9 min 32 sec)
Kitchen 3	5 min 50 sec	6 min 10 sec	8 min 30 sec** (9 min 30 sec)

* The adhesive caps used in this trial were a major brand supplied by a well-known Australian distributor, and use a pressure-sensitive adhesive. Time in red brackets is the time taken to apply as per Manufacturer's directions - "in order to fully activate the adhesive, it is always best to apply reasonable pressure. A quick rub with your finger or a tap with a hammer will do"

** On Kitchen 3, a number of fasteners had been left proud of the worksurface, and needed to be adjusted before the adhesive caps could be applied

Key factors noted were:

Overall fitting time was influenced by: 1) motivation and agility of installer; 2) location of fasteners to be covered and 3) distance between individual cupboards
Bifix caps were generally fastest to fit, as the stem self-centres in the fastener drive recess and only requires light thumb pressure to insert
Although adhesive caps could be placed over the fastener head quickly, they required time and attention to detail to ensure they were accurately centred over the fastener head. Even so, on one kitchen where a number of caps were applied vertically, there was a noticeable variation in the alignment of the caps.

Verdict: Sorry folks, adhesive caps may be easy to stick on, but in fact require more skill to alighn them accurately AND are slower than using Bifix or Stemfix caps (slower still if you follow manufacturer's recommended procedure)

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