Need guidance on drawer guides

[Prashun Patel]

I've made a handful of tables with three methods for drawer runners: 1) side guides that ride in slots in the drawers, 2) a single middle, lower guide, 3) 'drawer in a box' where the opening is framed out on the side, top and bottom.

The 3rd method is the easiest, but has felt sloppy to me; the drawer tends to wiggle; it seems difficult to eliminate wiggle even with tight tolerances on the opening.

So, my question is, what's your preferred way of doing it?

[glenn bradley]

For me it depends on the purpose and the dimensions. Small drawers in shallow fixtures like wall cabinets get piston fit drawers (your version 3). Most others get side rails with the drawer hanging from grooves in the drawer sides. I have added a center guide to very wide drawers but, generally avoid them for no particular reason I can think of . . . now that I'm thinking about it :)

[Prashun Patel]

This is a writing desk with drawers between 8" and 14" wide, 3" tall, 13" deep.

[Andrew Hughes]

Drawers that are wider than they are deep work better with a center mount.Helps with the racking.Unless one can build a perfectly square drawer and opening. I sure can't.Aj

[Sam Murdoch]

For me it depends on the purpose and the dimensions. Small drawers in shallow fixtures like wall cabinets get piston fit drawers (your version 3). Most others get side rails with the drawer hanging from grooves in the drawer sides. I have added a center guide to very wide drawers but, generally avoid them for no particular reason I can think of . . . now that I'm thinking about it :)

I agree here with Glenn. # 2 is a pretty decent method most of the time. I have also used some hard wood right angle guides as shown in the photo. Easy to do if you have a bottom or a frame under the drawer boxes and it allows a cheat (as if you need one) to adjust the back in or out in relation to the center if for some reason out of parallel is needed :rolleyes:. The white cloudy effect is paraffin wax.

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[Jamie Buxton]

There's a fourth scheme, which I like: NK drawers. There's quite a few posts on this forum about this approach, but you have to use the google-based search, not the SMC search. The SMC search ignore short words like "NK", so you get any post with "drawers".