Why This Comparison Is Worth Doing

Most hardware suppliers sell to the RV industry as if it were one market. It is at least two.

A Class A coach is a heavy vehicle with a dedicated chassis, a body that flexes, generous wall depth, and an owner who expects a residential look. A Class B is a panel van with the roof left on — every millimetre of interior width is contested, every kilogram counts against payload, and the conversion is often built by a shop producing dozens of units a year rather than thousands.

Halving the length does not halve the BOM. It restructures it. The following is the line-by-line comparison, based on a typical 12 m diesel-pusher Class A and a typical 6 m long-wheelbase van conversion.

The Headline Count

Hardware line:

Interior cabinet latches | Class A (≈12 m): 34–48 | Class B (≈6 m): 12–18 | Notes: Class A carries a full galley, wardrobe wall and bedroom overheads

Hardware line:

Interior door hinges (pairs) | Class A (≈12 m): 30–44 | Class B (≈6 m): 11–16 | Notes: Roughly one pair per door, two pairs on full-height doors

Hardware line:

Drawer slides (pairs) | Class A (≈12 m): 12–20 | Class B (≈6 m): 4–8 | Notes: Class B substitutes open cubbies and net storage

Hardware line:

Flush pulls / recessed rings | Class A (≈12 m): 8–14 | Class B (≈6 m): 6–10 | Notes: Ratio is much higher on Class B — every projecting handle is a shin hazard

Hardware line:

Exterior compartment latches | Class A (≈12 m): 14–22 | Class B (≈6 m): 2–6 | Notes: The single biggest divergence in the whole BOM

Hardware line:

Exterior compartment hinges (pairs) | Class A (≈12 m): 14–22 | Class B (≈6 m): 2–6 | Notes: Tracks the latch count

Hardware line:

Entry door lockset | Class A (≈12 m): 1 | Class B (≈6 m): 1 | Notes: Same count, very different part

Hardware line:

Grab handles / assist bars | Class A (≈12 m): 3–5 | Class B (≈6 m): 1–2 | Notes: Class A has more steps to climb

Hardware line:

Tie-downs / lashing points | Class A (≈12 m): 4–8 | Class B (≈6 m): 8–16 | Notes: Inverted — the van is the cargo-carrying one

Hardware line:

Service-panel and equipment latches | Class A (≈12 m): 6–10 | Class B (≈6 m): 4–8 | Notes: Similar absolute count in a much smaller volume

Hardware line:

Approximate hardware line items | Class A (≈12 m): 110–160 | Class B (≈6 m): 50–80

Two lines invert. Exterior compartment hardware collapses by roughly 80% on a Class B because a van has no basement bays — the underfloor is chassis, not storage. Tie-downs go the other way, because a Class B is expected to carry bikes, boards, tools and gear inside the living space, and every one of those needs an anchor.

Line 1: Interior Cabinet Latching

Class A.

Volume is high and appearance leads. The interior is styled as residential joinery, so latches are chosen to match a cabinetry finish — chrome, brushed nickel, or a warm-toned equivalent — and are usually specified in a single finish across 40-plus positions to avoid mismatch complaints. Panel thickness is standardised at the factory, typically 12–15 mm, so a single grip range covers the whole coach.

Class B.

Volume is low and function leads. Conversions frequently use 16–18 mm birch ply because it is the stock the joinery shop buys, which immediately puts standard 4–16 mm grip-range latches out of specification. Weight matters: a Class B on a 3.5 t chassis is often within 150 kg of its GVWR before the owner packs anything, so an ABS-bodied latch at 18 g instead of a zinc casting at 55 g, multiplied across 15 positions, is a real half-kilogram.

The practical BOM consequence: Class A buys one latch part number in quantity; Class B buys two or three, chosen by panel thickness and by whether that door is in the owner's eyeline.

For volume interior positions, the MSYT-6538 keyless ABS cabinet latch is the lightweight default. Where the coach wants a metal button against a wood door, the FCMS-010 chrome-plated push lock puts a zinc-alloy face on a plastic body — decorative where it shows, corrosion-immune where it does not.

MSYT-6538 keyless ABS cabinet latch, the volume interior line item on both BOMs

Line 2: Pulls, and Why Class B Buys More of Them

This is the line most Class A engineers underestimate when they move to a van programme.

A Class A corridor is 900–1,100 mm wide. A Class B corridor between a galley run and a bed base can be under 550 mm. A handle projecting 25 mm from a cabinet face is a hip bruise every time someone passes, and in a vehicle that gets used as daily transport, that happens dozens of times a day.

So Class B substitutes recessed hardware wherever it can:

Flush pull rings for overhead doors, so nothing projects at head height. The MS739 flat pull ring panel lock sits essentially level with the door face and is available in several colours to match a light interior.
Moulded recessed pulls for floor lockers and step boxes, where anything raised is a trip hazard — the LS1118 recessed flush pull handle is the standard section for this.
Bow handles kept to the one or two positions that genuinely need grip, such as a sliding pantry. A nylon LS007 bow-shaped handle is light and will not mark a passing knee the way a cast metal bar does.

Class A can afford projecting decorative pulls because it has the corridor width. Class B trades appearance for clearance almost every time.

Line 3: Hinges — the Quietest Cost Difference

Class A:

Interior door hinge type | Class B: Concealed / wrap-around cup hinge, residential look

Class A:

Typical door mass | Class B: 1.2–2.5 kg

Class A:

Exterior compartment hinge | Class B: Continuous or heavy butt hinge, painted to body colour

Class A:

Rear / side door hardware | Class B: Not applicable

Class A:

Corrosion spec | Class B: Zinc + coating adequate (bay is enclosed)

The counter-intuitive result: a Class B often needs a *stronger* interior hinge than a Class A despite having fewer doors. The doors are made from thicker ply, they are shorter and therefore stiffer in bending, and the van body transmits more road input to the joinery because there is no coach-body isolation between the chassis and the furniture. A concealed hinge sized for residential cabinetry will loosen in its cup.

Two specification notes worth carrying into the BOM. First, for interior joinery a JL45-1 black zinc-alloy concealed cabinet hinge or a JL219-3 wrap-around concealed hinge gives a clean interior line with a metal body rather than a pressed-steel residential part. Second, for anything structural — a bed base that lifts, a garage hatch, a heavy equipment door — a JL0311 60×60 mm soft-close butt hinge carries the load and stops the slam that fatigues a plywood carcass.

JL0311 heavy-duty soft-close butt hinge for lift-up bed bases and equipment doors

Line 4: Exterior Compartments — Where the BOMs Diverge Hardest

A Class A basement is a hardware programme in its own right: 7 to 11 doors, each with two latches and a hinge run, each needing a gasket, each needing to be dry after a pressure wash. That is 14–22 latches, a keying plan, and a sealing strategy. Material spec is chrome-plated zinc for touring coaches and SUS304 for anything sold into coastal or salted-road markets.

A Class B has almost none of this. What it does have is usually one of three things:

A rear or side gear locker cut into the van floor or wall, needing a single sealed latch.
An external shower or utility hatch, needing a latch that tolerates constant wetting.
A roof-box or awning-rail accessory bay, needing security more than sealing.

Because the count is so low, Class B builders can afford stainless on every exterior position without meaningfully moving the BOM cost — 4 stainless latches instead of 4 chromed ones is a rounding error, whereas 22 stainless latches on a Class A is a line-item negotiation. Practically, that means the MSK920-1 stainless paddle lock or a folding MSK866-1 whale-tail T-handle is a sensible default on a conversion, where a Class A programme would run a mixed spec by bay.

MSK920-1 stainless paddle lock for van conversion gear lockers and utility hatches

Line 5: Entry Door and Security

Both vehicles have exactly one entry lockset, and it is the single most-cycled part on the coach — 8,000 to 15,000 cycles over a ten-year life is realistic.

Class A

uses a purpose-built RV entry lock in a moulded composite door, usually with a separate deadbolt and increasingly with a keypad. The hardware sits in a door of known thickness and known cut-out, so the part is essentially fixed by the door supplier.

Class B

retains the van's factory sliding and rear doors, which means the aftermarket security work moves *inside*: a lockable partition, a secure equipment cabinet, or a lock on a habitation door retrofitted into the sliding-door aperture. This is where a coach-style knob lock such as the FCSMS-096 RV camper entry door lock fits a conversion better than a full residential lockset — it is dimensioned for vehicle panel thickness rather than a 40 mm house door.

For any cabinet holding tools, camera gear or a lithium bank — a much more common requirement on a van than on a coach — specify a real cylinder rather than a wafer lock. The DL10A-140B SUS304 recessed handle lock with cylinder is the usual answer, and it mounts flush enough not to intrude on a narrow aisle.

Line 6: Load Restraint — the Line Class A Forgets

A Class A stores gear in sealed basement bays where it can shift harmlessly. A Class B stores gear in the living space, half a metre from the occupants' heads, on a vehicle whose payload is measured in hundreds rather than thousands of kilograms.

Every conversion therefore needs an anchor plan: 8 to 16 lashing points, sized to restrain the actual masses being carried, bolted through to structure rather than screwed into ply. A stainless LHS-010 D-ring tie-down is the standard part; the engineering effort goes into the backing plate, not the ring. A 20 kg battery box in a 20 g frontal event is a 4 kN load — a ring screwed into 15 mm plywood will pull straight through.

Line 7: Electrical and Equipment Enclosure Hardware

Both vehicles carry an electrical bay, and both increasingly carry lithium storage and an inverter/charger. The hardware requirement is the same in kind and different in scale.

Ventilated, non-conductive latching. For a generator or battery compartment door, a glass-filled PA paddle such as the MBS113-1 removes a galvanic path between a stainless fastener and an aluminium or steel skin.
Tool-required access. Anything behind which a DC bus sits should not open by hand. Key-operated or quarter-turn access is the norm, and it should be a different key group from the storage bays.
Service clearance. On a Class B the electrical bay is usually under a bed or a bench, opened by lifting a heavy panel. That panel needs a load-rated hinge and a stay — the same JL0311-class hinge referenced above, not a residential butt hinge.

Two Different Purchasing Patterns

The BOMs differ; so does how they are bought.

Class A OEM:

Annual volume | Class B converter / DIY shop: 500–5,000 units

Class A OEM:

Part numbers carried | Class B converter / DIY shop: Few, high quantity

Class A OEM:

Ordering cadence | Class B converter / DIY shop: Blanket order, scheduled releases

Class A OEM:

MOQ tolerance | Class B converter / DIY shop: High — 1,000+ pieces is routine

Class A OEM:

Finish consistency | Class B converter / DIY shop: Critical across a single unit and across a model year

Class A OEM:

Lead-time sensitivity | Class B converter / DIY shop: Planned against a production schedule

Class A OEM:

Packaging need | Class B converter / DIY shop: Bulk, line-side

Class A OEM:

Documentation need | Class B converter / DIY shop: Full spec, PPAP-style evidence

The single most useful thing a supplier can do for a Class B converter is kit by zone — galley pack, wardrobe pack, exterior pack — because the shop is not running a line, it is running one van at a time with a two-person crew.

A Starting BOM for Each

Class A, per unit, hardware only:

40 × interior push latch, chrome or brushed finish, 12–15 mm grip
36 pairs × concealed cabinet hinge
10 × flush pull ring, matched finish
18 × exterior compartment latch (compression on bays over 900 mm, paddle elsewhere)
18 pairs × exterior compartment hinge, body-colour coated
1 × entry lockset with deadbolt
4 × grab handle
8 × service-panel quarter-turn, separate key group
6 × tie-down, basement bay

Class B, per unit, hardware only:

15 × interior push latch, ABS body, split between 12–15 mm and 16–18 mm grip
14 pairs × concealed cabinet hinge, heavy-duty grade
8 × recessed flush pull, no projecting handles in the aisle
4 × exterior latch, SUS304 throughout
3 pairs × heavy butt hinge for lift-up bed and equipment panels
1 × habitation door lockset sized for vehicle panel thickness
12 × D-ring tie-down with structural backing plates
6 × equipment-bay latch, non-conductive where adjacent to DC bus

The Takeaway for Buyers

Do not scale a Class A BOM down. Rebuild it. Halving the vehicle length removes almost all the exterior compartment hardware, adds load-restraint hardware that the coach never needed, pushes interior latches toward lighter materials and thicker panels, and replaces projecting handles with recessed ones because the aisle will not tolerate them. The only line that genuinely stays the same is the entry lockset — and even that is a different part.

Browse handles and hinges, or work through a full door-by-door specification on our recreational vehicle hardware page.

Need help choosing? Contact our engineering team for a recommendation.