Help choosing drawer slides

[Dick Holt]

I made a new maple butcher block top for my bathroom vanity. I also made new maple doors, drawers and drawer fronts. I replaced the slides, which were the cheap 3/4 extension type which has one center mount nylon roller. I used a Rockler full extension side mount and didn't like it. It was noisy and I didn't like the banging noise it makes when the two sections meet when closing. I then tried a KV slide which also had the soft close feature. It also was noisy and required a lot of effort to overcome the soft close mechanism when first opened. Is there a full extension slide made that is truly quiet, has the solt close feature and is easy to open? It doesn't matter if it is side mount or bottom mount.

Dick

[Doug Richardson]

Personally, I like The Blum Blumotion series.....

[Greg R Bradley]

All of the mechanical closing mechanism slides that I have found have a large amount of effort to open the drawer. All the Rocklers around here have a display that shows this for the models they carry. I think it may be more noticeable by the small/light drawers they use in their display. The Blum Blumotion are much smoother than the others but seem to have the highest effort to open the drawer the first inch or two.

Blum undermounts can be installed without the Blumotion self closer that can be added later. They do take up a bunch of vertical space so be careful with that. Blum is excellent at providing all this info on their website.

The cheap full extension slides all have a "bang" when they transition from one stage to the other to allow full opening. So do all the high quality file cabinets that I have seen.

[Andrew Joiner]

The cheap full extension slides all have a "bang" when they transition from one stage to the other to allow full opening. So do all the high quality file cabinets that I have seen.
Greg, Are the sample drawers your testing empty?

I've used cheap full extension slides, dynaslide brand a lot. They aren't soft close. They have no "bang" on opening when there's 75- 100 lbs in them. Pencil drawers with little weight in them do have slight thud when they transition.

[Mike Goetzke]

I finished our kitchen a little while back and used Hettich soft close slides from CSH. They work great and don't really notice that it requires a lot of effort to open.

Mike

[Sam Murdoch]

A metal on metal slide will be a little clackity no matter what - though a full drawer is more quiet. Have always been happy with Accurides or Grant/Hettich and typically use Blum Tandems with no complaints for undermount applications. I've complained about KVs and some other lesser know slides but others here on the creek like KVs just fine. For drawer slides I think you get what you pay for and I don't choose to compromise to save a few bucks. More aggravation in the long run is just money poorly saved and badly spent.