Slides for very wide drawer

[stephen wood]

Designing a frameless bathroom vanity cabinet 39 inches wide. Want the top drawer to be the whole width and inside to wrap around the sink. Using under mount slides; one on each side. Will the center of the drawer sag? What can I do about that?

[Lee Schierer]

Most likely the drawer won't sag if the sides are tall enough unless you fill it with heavy items. The bigger problem is racking of the slides, which can damage them. Check the recommended drawer width for the slides you plan to use. They do make heavier duty slides for extra wide drawers.

[Paul F Franklin]

By wrap around the sink do you mean the front of the drawer will be the whole width, but the back of the drawer will be 3 sections, two deep ones on the side and one shallower section in the middle by the sink? If that's what you mean, I think sagging could be an issue.

As Lee points out, racking of the slides is certainly a consideration. There are slides designed for wide drawers, but AFAIK, they are all side mount not under mount.

[Jery Madigan]

Stephen, as folks have mentioned, racking is the main concern.

Blum makes a stabilizer for this.


I am making a wide drawer that will hold heavy items (food prcessor, mixer, etc.) so I am using the stabilizer and heavy duty slides plus using 1/2" plywood for the drawer bottom.

I get my stuff from woodworkers express, here are their numbers.

11467233 Heavy duty Movento 769 silde 21" - you may be able to use the lighter version
11372418 Movento stabilizer unit.
11198217 The 563 slides I used everywhere else. The stabilizer does not work with these.

I suppose that you could try it without the stabilizer and then add it later.

Jerry

[Jim Becker]

I had a similar situation with the vanities in our master bath. While I ran a single board across the front for continuous grain, I did break it into more than one drawer. This solved any racking issues. The narrower vanity in the guest bath is done similarly, but with only two drawers. The crux of this method is that the drawer box is offset relative to the total drawer front width, with space maintained to clear plumbing, etc. You can see that in the second photo between the right and center drawer.

449186


449187

[Dave Sabo]

Stephen, as folks have mentioned, racking is the main concern.

Blum makes a stabilizer for this.

y

Yes, but the stabilizer ain’t gonna work with a U shaped drawer that closes around a sink and p-trap

Use a 5/8” thick bottom and you should be fine. We’ve done this with Tandembox and 36” wide drawers but never 39-48” so I can’t say on those. Tandembox is lighter than wooden sides, so that’s a help.

There are also nubbins from Blum that attach to the drawer front and mortise into quick release fittings on the drawer bottom to aid in preventing sag.

just looked for the part numbers for the front nubbins, and they’re not available anymore. Been replaced by this :

[Mark Bolton]

Same as Dave here... we've run non regulated wide drawers a lot with no problem but we've likely just gotten lucky that our customers treat stuff like humans rather than baboons or orangutans. Several half measures are floated with super wide non-regulated drawers. Installing two pulls/handles to try to get people to pull with two hands is a great option but if you get a lump who is only gonna jerk on one of the two with their cell phone in the other hand your definitely going to have racking.

A rigid well built drawer box with good quality undermounts you can get pretty darn wide. If your running side mounts.. a lot less so.