Campaign Hardware from Whitechapel Ltd.

One of the hardware vendors that is always on my short list is Whitechapel Ltd., which offers a lot of quality, hard-to-find pieces. So after some digging through the company’s catalog and web site, I purchased some samples of campaign-style hardware to take a look.

Overall, these English-made brasses are excellent. The pulls are heavy and well-finished. The brackets and corners are scaled correctly and countersunk for screws. I wasn’t, however, thrilled by the coating on the pieces.

I ordered all the parts in Whitechapel’s “antiqued brass” finish; all the following parts are also available in polished brass. While the pieces are toned nicely, the top coating has an iridescence that doesn’t look quite right to me. The coating is very shiny and seems to lend a slight blue cast to the pulls when light reflects off them.

My guess is that they are covered in lacquer, and my first instinct is to dunk them in lacquer thinner and see what they look like after that. But I’m out of lacquer thinner today; I’ll pick some up today and update this blog entry later.

Update: No amount of soaking in lacquer thinner changed the finish. Note the comment below.

Aside from the finish, I am very pleased with these brasses. The flush pulls are made in an unusual way that is worth noting. Instead of casting the backplate as one piece, the manufacturer (Armacuk) made the backplate in two pieces – a cast front and a brass plate for the back. The two pieces are screwed together from the back. It makes for a very tidy piece of hardware.

Whitechapel offers a variety of styles and sizes; see this page for a sample. I ordered a medium pull and a large one.

The corners both have the same finish on them. The decorative corner has a cove shape, which is a common profile on campaign hardware. And the matching corner bracket has the countersunk screw holes right where I’d put them. All the hardware includes nice slotted brass screws.

— Christopher Schwarz