side mounted soft closing runners

[michael foster]

I am building a cabinet for a client. Blum's price was too much for the lady so I suggested side mounted drawer runners (28"). The last time I ordered a set from accuride and had big problems with them fully closing on their own. My questions are .
What should I buy?
What is the difference between soft and self close runners?
When I was looking around I see the difference between the drawer box and the cabinet box on one type of runner as 1" + 0 to 1/32".
Is their a standard recommended workable dimension.
Michael

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

Self closing "snap" closed, and seem to have a stronger closing mechanism than soft close, which close slowly.
With side mount soft close, it's very important that both the cabinet and drawer are perfectly square.
Optimal size is between 1" and 1-1/32" smaller than the opening.

Personally, I find KV slides to be of higher quality than Accuride.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Personally, I find KV slides to be of higher quality than Accuride.

Although I have not installed many drawers using runners (maybe 10 to 20), the few KV slides I installed all work better than the Accuride slides that I installed. None are soft or auto close.

I installed one Blum bottom mount soft close and it works perfectly.

[Steve Peterson]

I had reasonable success installing Indamatic soft close drawer adapters to all the drawers at my old house. They run about $3.50 each and take a couple of minutes to install. I installed around 50 of them with maybe 2 or 3 of them needing adjustment in the first 2 years. Soft close built into the slides would be easier, but this was for a house that came with all Blum style epoxy slides.

It takes a tiny bit of a stronger pull for the first 3" or so of opening the drawer. Then just push the drawer shut and it gently glides shut for the last 3" of travel.

Steve

[brian wight]

I only have a sample size of one, but I'm satisfied with my KV g-slide that I bought for my pull-out garbage cabinet. I did a bit of research before buying them and they seemed to have the most consistently positive reviews.

[Martin Wasner]

What should I buy?

The Blum undermounts.

A set of the 569's, which are 125# slides in 27" are $37.50.

A KV 8400 in 28", which has no self/soft close, is $11 a set.

The KV8450FM has self/soft close is $15 a set. I'm not a fan of these. I did a small kitchen with them a while back and thought they were garbage.

[Lee Schierer]

When I purchased slides for the pantry in our house I purchased KV8450FM™ SOFT CLOSE SLIDES WITH FORCE MANAGEMENT™ TECHNOLOGY from woodworker supply. They all have worked flawlessly for over 2 years so far.

[Sean Tracey]

The KV and Accuride, full extension, 100lb, side slides I have installed required the drawer to be 25 to 27 mm smaller than the cabinet opening.

Drawer slides are really sized for metric and I find it much easier to work make drawers to metric dimensions.

I make the drawer 27 mm smaller than the opening so I can be off by 2 mm if I make them too big and if I make them too small than a 1/4" SAE flat washer on one side of the drawer runner at the mounting screws will almost always be enough to correct the width. If you miss really small, a 1/4" washer on both sides will fix things. If you miss smaller than that, then you can put a washer under the cabinet side of the slides. But don't miss that small.

A milimeter is 0.039", a 1/4" SAE washer is around 0.065" thick. So if you miss by 1 mm too small, then the thickness of a washer will put you above the small side of the tolerance.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

27mm smaller is outside the manufacturers recommended range, and will require shimming for the slides to work properly. Why would you choose to make them that size?
If you make them 26mm, they'll work fine every time.

[Andy Giddings]

+1 on the Blum undermounts recommended by Martin. Easy to fit, reliable and no show when the drawer is extended. As the Client isn't willing to pay the Blum price, I would try and persuade her about the no show of an undermount - especially if you are using good materials/joints for the drawer. Unless there are a lot of drawers in the cabinet the difference is going to be small

[guy knight]

kv work the best accuride sucks

[John TenEyck]

KV soft close side mounted have worked great for me with never a problem. I've also had no troubles with KV muV soft close undermounts, though I like Blum Tandem Blu Motion more. Price increases in the order I listed them. AH Turf is THE place to buy Blum.

John

[Sean Tracey]

KV 4100, 8400, 8430, TT100 and Accuride 3832TR, and 3732 all show the smallest drawer as 27 mm smaller than opening, so 27 mm is not outside of the tolerance on those slides and possibly others.

For those series of slides and possibly others, KV allows a drawer to be 25 mm smaller than opening while Accuride requires largest drawer to be 25.4 mm smaller than the opening.

So if you shoot for 26 mm smaller than opening, you only have 0.6mm tolerance before your drawer will be too big when using those series of Accurides. That's only 0.024"

If you are making cabinets and drawers from melamine, a drawer that is too big is junk. If you are making the drawers from solid wood, then you have to sand, or plane, or saw off the excess.

If you make the drawers to 27 mm smaller than opening and you have good material, a good process, and good cabinet boxes, most of your drawers will fit. If one doesn't fit, a simple addition of an 1/4", SAE washer at each mounting screw will solve the problem.

If you have no problems controlling your material thickness, saw cuts, drawer and cabinet squareness, and even cabinet installation to .6 mm tolerance, then 26 mm drawers work perfectly every time.

I like to have a little more leeway than that. I got some Accuride's for a good price and the smaller tolerance compared to the KV's as well as a project involving a cabinet on wheels encouraged me to build the drawers to 27 mm. I am glad I did. Most of the 16 drawers worked with no shims required. I think 2 or maybe 3 required washers on one side of the drawer slide.