Shawn Horley
06-02-2019, 8:35 PM
Greetings Folks!
I am hoping I can get some advice from you all on the best way to go about reinforcing the drawer rails on my kitchen cabinets.
Here's the scenario: I live in a housing co-op townhouse, and when we moved in the place had just been renovated. New carpet, paint, new bathroom, and new Kitchen. Sounds great right? only one problem. The cabinets they used for the kitchen are such poor quality that other new residents like myself found that the drawer rails for the roll-out drawers can't actually take any weight and rip out of the MDF. So people have these things collapsing and breaking their belongings in the process.
I am looking to avoid that and want to reinforce the rails if I can. They are each mounted with a pair of short (slightly shorter than 5/8") "Euro screws" the blunt nosed guys. This is all pre-fab stuff, the typical melamine faced mdf (also about 5/8" in width) and the rails are the skinny guys410783
So I thought I'd just add some wood screws and maybe that would solve the problem... Then I made the mistake of overthinking and under-researching the whole thing.
I was convinced to fill the holes that the euro screws had been in (toothpicks and wood-glue mixed with fine sawdust) then drill out to the original size so they would have the same amount of bite when they first went in. However there was a problem with that idea. Now those screws aren't sitting flush anymore and the wheel of the drawer-side rail hits them... Wait though, it gets better.
I figured, well I can use some wood screws in those extra holes in the rails to help with the hold. But the wood screws won't screw flush enough to allow the drawer rails to pass, same as the euro screws... To top it all off I decided to try using an adhesive on the rails to help with the not falling apart under the weight of loaded drawers... problem with that is it held on some of the rails, and not on others.
The adhesive I used was the Gorilla epoxy.
So now I have some rails sticking to the cabinet walls with just the epoxy, like the pic above and others that didn't stick at all, euro-screws that won't seat flush, and the wood screws I intended to use not seating flush either... and a bunch of epoxy that cured to the walls, but not to the rails.
So now that I have laid my amateurish attempts at reinforcing the cabinet rails for you all to see, do you have any suggestions on how I can make this right? Just so you know, throwing the cabinet out altogether is not an option.
All other advice is welcome!
Cheers
Shawn
I am hoping I can get some advice from you all on the best way to go about reinforcing the drawer rails on my kitchen cabinets.
Here's the scenario: I live in a housing co-op townhouse, and when we moved in the place had just been renovated. New carpet, paint, new bathroom, and new Kitchen. Sounds great right? only one problem. The cabinets they used for the kitchen are such poor quality that other new residents like myself found that the drawer rails for the roll-out drawers can't actually take any weight and rip out of the MDF. So people have these things collapsing and breaking their belongings in the process.
I am looking to avoid that and want to reinforce the rails if I can. They are each mounted with a pair of short (slightly shorter than 5/8") "Euro screws" the blunt nosed guys. This is all pre-fab stuff, the typical melamine faced mdf (also about 5/8" in width) and the rails are the skinny guys410783
So I thought I'd just add some wood screws and maybe that would solve the problem... Then I made the mistake of overthinking and under-researching the whole thing.
I was convinced to fill the holes that the euro screws had been in (toothpicks and wood-glue mixed with fine sawdust) then drill out to the original size so they would have the same amount of bite when they first went in. However there was a problem with that idea. Now those screws aren't sitting flush anymore and the wheel of the drawer-side rail hits them... Wait though, it gets better.
I figured, well I can use some wood screws in those extra holes in the rails to help with the hold. But the wood screws won't screw flush enough to allow the drawer rails to pass, same as the euro screws... To top it all off I decided to try using an adhesive on the rails to help with the not falling apart under the weight of loaded drawers... problem with that is it held on some of the rails, and not on others.
The adhesive I used was the Gorilla epoxy.
So now I have some rails sticking to the cabinet walls with just the epoxy, like the pic above and others that didn't stick at all, euro-screws that won't seat flush, and the wood screws I intended to use not seating flush either... and a bunch of epoxy that cured to the walls, but not to the rails.
So now that I have laid my amateurish attempts at reinforcing the cabinet rails for you all to see, do you have any suggestions on how I can make this right? Just so you know, throwing the cabinet out altogether is not an option.
All other advice is welcome!
Cheers
Shawn