Questions re: using Blum drawer slides

[David Croteau]

After responses to an earlier post, I've decided to try the 21" Blum 562H in the protoype for my kitchen cabs.

1. I'm thinking of doing side mount to give myself some flexibility on the depth of the cab. Is there any advantage or disadvantage of doing side mount vs. rear mount on these?

2. How do you judge when a jump up to the #100 (or even (#125) slides might be warranted? I can always guess but it would just be...well...a guess!

3. I was surprised to see dust covers for these. Should I get those?

4. ahturf seems to have the lowest prices...but they make it up in huge shipping fees. Taking shipping into account, woodworkershardware seems have about the same price. Any other suggestions on places likely to have a good price on these?

Thanks again.

[Jay Jolliffe]

The last job I did I used the blummotion under mount. Try HDL for pricing. Cheaper than woodworkers hardware.

[David Croteau]

The last job I did I used the blummotion under mount. Try HDL for pricing. Cheaper than woodworkers hardware.

Yup, those are the one's I'm looking at. HDL's wholesale and I'm a lowly homeowner...an issue that's plaguing me as I try to find pre-finished ply for my boxes, too. :(

[Roger Jensen]

Can't help you on the pre-finished plywood search, but A&H Turf is a great place for Blum supplies. They sell to the public and have the best prices.

Roger

[Peter Quinn]

I used wood workers hardware for the last set I bought, seemed to be the best price over all I could achieve. I like to side mount whenever possible and typically pack out the sides on face frame cabs to do so rather than crawl into a drawer bank to mount the rear clips. Keep in mind your cabs have to be pretty square and plumb going back for this to work. Not perfect but pretty good. You can always shim as needed with side mount installation to overcome minor deviations. If you are doing inset they make some great retainer clips for this purpose. Oh, and pay attention to how you build your drawers as the blum slides are meant to work with a pretty specific geometry. Follow the blum spec sheet closely to calculate your drawer sizes after determining the openings.

Blum sells a cool jig for mounting the retaining clips and for drilling the required holes in the back of the drawers for the slide retaining prongs, it costs about $55 dollars. I made a similar jig from birch plywood and a piece of hard maple from my scrap bin, cost about $0.55, works just as well.

As far as weight I think you want your static load maximum to be about 75% of the drawers stated rating to be able to handle the dymamic load (in motion, full extension). Not helpful? Got a scale? Assemble what you imagine putting in the drawer in a box, add the weight of the drawer, and weigh it on a scale (bathroom, shipping scale, etc). If you want to put 75# in the drawer, you need 100# slides for example. Beyond that its trial and error. I have heard of customers loading 100# slides in large drawers with canned goods or iron pots that double the load rating and wondering why the drawers wont close smoothly. I wonder why the drawers didn't just fall off?

[Karl Brogger]

The last job I did I used the blummotion under mount. Try HDL for pricing. Cheaper than woodworkers hardware.


Jay, do you use an HDL locally, or is it just the one here in Minnesota?

[Ed Peters]

for my cup hinges, I use www.outwatercatalogs.com for my drawer glides and rear mounting clips. If you need my hints on an easy way to install the clips right each time, let me know.

Ed