Blumotion undermount soft close mechanism too weak

[Mark Dunavant]

I've been working with Blum undermount guides for many years and I consider them the best option, hands down, for drawer guides for 99% of cabinet designs. However, I am finding them to be deficient in one specific area that is causing me problems. The soft close mechanism is just weak. I understand all the factors that come into play here such as fitment of the drawer to the cabinet, accuracy of guide adjustment, weight of items stored in the drawer but, all those issues aside, these guides still don't close the drawer firmly enough to hold it closed in a definite closed position. This makes adjustment/alignment of the drawer fronts a real issue. I know they're supposed to close softly but, they should still close firmly enough to not cause problems.

Does anyone know of any fixes for this issue? I wish there were a way to adjust the guide to make the spring tension greater.

[Dan Hahr]

Anytime I thought the slides were weak I figured out that my drawer was binding somewhere. The tolerance is very small...

Dan

[John TenEyck]

Every time a drawer hasn't closed completely it was because something wasn't aligned properly or was binding. Finding the problem sometimes to be very frustrating but, in the end, the slides have always worked properly once the problem was found and corrected.

John

[Mark Hockenberg]

Mark,

My experience is consistent with Dan and John. I've installed hundreds of Tandems and have had excellent results.

You may want to check the hole in the back of the drawer box and ensure that the pin is seated. If it isn't, the front of the slide won't properly click into the locking device. When this happens, it sometimes feels like it's in correctly, but you have only one side doing the "closing".

If you build your own drawer boxes, the Blum drilling jig for the hole is worth it.

Cheers,
Mark