Metal drawer slides. Not for me!

[Roger Marty]

I've made about 25 drawers all with wood slides. Tried my first set of metal slides on a 39" x 6" drawer for a blanket chest. What a disaster. I realized the drawer box is not quite perfectly square....the rear tapers by a 1/16" or so. After futzing with a hand planer for 2+ hours today, I've decided to scrap the drawer and make a new one that uses the wood slide (which is already there).

[Curt Harms]

I had a similar experience when first making drawers. Study and refining techniques - learning about jigs and stops mostly - produced acceptable results. We like full extension or even over extension drawers so it's easy to reach what's in the back. That's not so easy using wood slides.

[scott vroom]

Another solution would have been to shim out the rear of the slide on the box with a 1/16" washer to make it parallel with the cabinet side.

Some folks like metal slides, others prefer wood. If you decide that you value the convenience of full extension then you'll likely be motivated to improve build accuracy.

[Jim Dwight]

Another disadvantage of metal slides is they waste space. I built a kitchen island for our previous house using wood on wood drawers just to gain storage space. Correctly made, they slide easy enough.

In this house, all my shop drawers are wood on wood.

[Jim Becker]

There are good applications for both wood and metal drawer slides and it's nice to have the choice between them!

[glenn bradley]

There are good applications for both wood and metal drawer slides and it's nice to have the choice between them!

+1. Sorry your first attempt went south. My first attempt on many things goes south.

[Ken Kortge]

This thread brings up thinking and raises a question that I've had for a while now .... It seems that both drawer and cabinet have to be perfectly square, that they both have to have perfect widths, and that the vertical placement of the slide components have to be perfectly aligned.

What are the tolerances for the typical metal drawer slide (such as a Blum)??

[Charles P. Wright]

I've found the Blum undermounts have a little bit more tolerance than the side-mount ball bearing slides; but don't have the numbers handy.

[Martin Wasner]

You have to be waaaay outside of the specs for a Blum undermount to start getting cranky. They are the most tolerant slides I've used.

[Bill Adamsen]

+1 with what Martin says. The biggest challenge with the undermount are ... the math (spreadsheet helps), getting the drawer fronts on in plane, with equal reveal and without shingling. I use the slide adjust screws (typically plus one fixed) until the install is done.

[Ken Combs]

This thread brings up thinking and raises a question that I've had for a while now .... It seems that both drawer and cabinet have to be perfectly square, that they both have to have perfect widths, and that the vertical placement of the slide components have to be perfectly aligned.

What are the tolerances for the typical metal drawer slide (such as a Blum)??

Specs on all I've used state +-1/32"

[William Young]

Check out the plans for making wood slides in Fine Woodworking, #143, July/Aug 2000. I have made several of these and they work quite well, You can make them as strong as you need and they are full extension (or less if you wish). This design is also tolerant of out-of-square drawer boxes (within reason). Like a lot of projects, the plans look more complicated than actual construction; especially once you are set up to make multiple pieces. Another version I have never tried is found in FW #117, Mar/April 1996. In my view, the latter is a little more elegant looking.

[william walton]

I understand the frustration; i built drawers in both sides of my assy table and tolerances must be close for them to work properly. Lately on a few projects I've been able to approach it differently - I build the drawer, attach slides, then attach to side runners ( 1 x 2s) and build that into my design. Works very well, no fussing.

[Terry Wawro]

Glad to hear it's just not me having trouble getting these things to align right. They are a pain to install but they do work well once you futz them into the space.

[John TenEyck]

Learning how to use metal slides is just another skill set you have to learn to build and install them to meet their tolerance requirements. Not many folks want wooden drawer slides on their kitchen cabinets so it's a skill set worth learning if you ever plan to build a set. My shop cabinets all have wooden slides - only because I'm cheap. For anything else besides period furniture I find metal slides are less work, slide more smoothly, last longer, and have no seasonal issues. The self closing feature alone is a huge advantage to me. Add on soft close and they are the clear winner most of the time.

John