drawer help -- i'm really frustrated

[Bob Cooper]

i could really use some help as i've been fighting this issue all night and i don't think i've made any real progress.

I'm building a kitchen cabinet w/large drawers -- 48". when the drawer is fuly extended, the left side is closer to the face frame than the right. So when it closes, the right side sits proud of frame. See attached pictures.

The drawer box is dead on square as is the case. The drawer guides i'm using as Blum's Blumotion 21" guides.

There are two drawers and both are exhibiting similar behavior.

From my measurements, the slides are running parallel and are the same height.

Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated!!

[Brad Schmid]

Bob,
It's a bit difficult to tell for sure, but I see something in pic #3 that appears amiss. The right rear corner joint of the drawer appears that the rabbet isn't deep enough on the back. The outside corners of the back and right side don/t appear to line up which would likely put the drawer out of square. Did you take diagonal corner to corner measurments to make sure they match?

edit: oops, sorry. I was looking at the corner of the carcass and not the drawer. I guess I shouldn't offer suggestions after bedtime ;)
Good luck
Brad

[Anthony Anderson]

first thing I would do is make sure the drawer member is fully engaged on the carcass slide member. If that is not it, I would remove the drawer by separating the slides. Take the right side carcass member and move it back the same amount that the drawer is proud when closed (on right side). Make sure to use the horizontal slots to refasten the slide to the carcass. Put the drawer back in and check fit. Fine tune (which is allowed by using the horizontal slots) and then when everything fits the way you want, then drive screws into the round holes. HTH, Bill

[Bill Fields]

Bob--

I feel your pain-- I have installed 2 or 3 dozen of top brand name (KV or Accuride) pull-out drawers and trays thru-out our house--and perhaps half of them are perfect.

The other half work OK--but there is an anomaly in the final portion of movement. If it's too bad I start over. Then it is usually fixed/better.

Get the Rockler installation jigs--just got them and they help.

Patience.


BILL

[Bob Cooper]

Bill:

the drawer is fully engaged and i have tried to move the right hand slide further back into the case (by 1/2") and it had zero affect. when i did that, all that it did was lessen the full extension when i pull it out -- the right slide fully extends before the left side.

[Dave Richards]

You didn't mention this in your post but is it possible that one drawer glide is mounted farther back in the cabinet than the other? Or on the drawer box?

[tod evans]

bob, the first thing i`d do is remove the hardware and put the drawer in the hole, push it to one side and check the measurements on the other, then repeat on the other side. also check to see if when tight to the side if the drawer is parallel to the face. you should find the offending drawer/carcase member with this method and be able to determine what`s necessary to fix the problem.. a bowed drawer side or carcase side will give you fits, or it`s possible that "square" really isn`t? .02 tod

[Mark Singer]

I just used about 2 dozen Blumotions and had no problems. Make sure the hole on the back of the drawer that excepts the guide is fully engaged. The guides should mount about 3mm back of the face. It seems that the drawer or case must be out of square. There are 2 adjustments on the guide...one is for height...I can't remeber what the second is for...make sure those are the same on both sides. It is a little lever on the bottom of the front guide.

[George Matthews]

The drawer box is dead on square as is the case.

Either the drawer or the case is out of square. Perhaps a little bit in opposite directions. Likely the sides are parallel, otherwise the drawer would jamb during travel. To confirm, measure the diagonals for both drawer and case. Rarely is a framing square 'square'.

If a single drawer is out, and rebuilding it is just not an option, I'd cut a tapered dado on opposite sides to square the face. The dado may be necessary as shims (washers) under the guides will make the drawer too wide. Does it sound like I've done this... :rolleyes:

[Chris Giles]

I agree with George, something isn't square. You might check the drawer box to make sure it doesn't have any twist to it. If the ends of the drawer sides aren't exactly square cut (and I mean EXACTLY on boxes this big), the box will actually have a twist in it after its glued up. This can produce a situation where one part of the drawer appears square while another is off by quite a bit. Carefully examine the drawer box in many different areas to check for squareness and parallel. Best of luck.

[Steve Clardy]

What I've learned to do over the years about drawers. I do a lot of them.
I never staple the rear 1/4" bottom of the drawer to the rear of the drawer until I insert it.
I insert the drawer box fully, then compare both sides of the front of it to the face frame. You need equal distance there.
If its off, then just pressure the side of the drawer box in thats protruding farther out, until both sides are equal. Then remove the drawer and staple the bottom.

[Roland Chung]

Hi Bob,

I've been using Blum Tandem with Blumotion for a bit and have discovered that if something is off, it's not the glides. They are heavy duty and precise, but they do have a little "wiggle room". There is a 50/50 chance that whatever is off is going out instead of in - I just mean that there is a chance that some shimming may not make your box too wide for the corrected opening.

Based on your pictures, try a 1/8" shim at the back of the right glide and the front of the left. This is quick, probably will allow your glides to still work. If this solution is on the right track, you will see the results immediately. 1/8" will translate into a significant difference at the front. Be sure to shim the middle of the glides with something about 1/16" to keep the middle of the glide from bowing.

I think that this technique is actually increasing the clearance between the inside edges of the box and the glides. As long as the outside faces of the dbox are clearing, the extra room on the inside should work with the little bit of slop built into the glides. If your case is out so slightly that you can't really measure it, then this might make a difference.

I hope this helps and sorry if it doesn't.

Roland

[Michael Gabbay]

Did you check to see if the drawer clips were fully engaged? I just finished installing the Blum 3/4 extension sliders for 6 drawers. I got to the last drawer and the drawer was not even from side to side (inset drawers). I readjusted the slider setbacks about 5 times and still not right. I finally pulled the sliders out and was mounting them to the drawer when I noticed the one of the clips was not fully engaging. The hole in the back was not lined up correctly :( . Also if you have another drawer that can fit in the space try that to see if it is the drawer box vs. the sliders.

[Bob Cooper]

Sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this. Based on your posts i've got some things i'd like to check out but i do have one clue that i learned since my post. I undid the screws on the mid and back right side which hold the slide to the side of the cabinet and this didn't totally fix the problem but it did make the symptoms much less severe. Also my 'dead on square' statement may not (must not) be right as i used a big T-square...i did not pull corners <-- i'll try that tomorrow.

Dave -- moving the right hand slide back had no real affect.
Mark -- i know there's one adjustment in the back which can be used to raise/lower the back of the drawer. I didn't really know there was another one.
Tod/George/Chris -- yes, i'm sure you're right. Somehow this thing has to be out of square. one piece or the other. George, you're right, if i try and shim one side the drawer box would rub against the slide. I'm not exactly sure though how i'd cut a dado/recess in the side of this case.? Suggestions?
Steve -- that's a great suggestion which i would have never thought of. That will now become standard procedure.
Roland -- that's exactly what removing the rear screws showed me. Once i removed those screws on the right hand side the back moved over some and the gap closed a good bit. I then put in a small shim back there and rescrewed. It's not fixed but it's better. Tomorrow i'll try and put a small shim on the left front and see if that totally fixed the issue.
Michael -- i did check this and yes sometimes i do have a little trouble getting those front clips to engage but that's not the issue here. No other drawer this size...it's the biggest one in the kitchen.

i really appreciate all the help. i'll let you know how it turns out. One thing that makes this such a pain is this drawer is *so* big and *so* heavy. It's made out of ash and has a full 3/4" bottom. It must weigh 50 pounds and w/o help it's tough to just pull it.

[Roland Chung]

Glad to hear that you are making progress. These glides are more complicated than any of the others that I have used. If you will be using these glides for more projects, there are some jigs and bits made by Blum that will help make your assembly faster and more accurate.

I noticed that your dboxes may weigh 50lbs. FYI, some of the more readily available Blum Tandems are rated for 75lbs and some for 110 lbs (I think). If this is a dresser, you probably won't have any problems - if it is a file cabinet, watchout!

If you have small children in the house, consider screwing the cabinet to the wall. If a child were to open both drawers at the same time, the cabinet might fall on them.

Good luck and tell us how things work out!

Roland

[Bob Cooper]

Roland:

These are kitchen cabinets. This one in particular goes beneath a 48" gas cooktop so the plan is to put my large pots/pans in this drawer so i could surpass 75 pounds. I'm using the 562H's. The drawer turned out to be quite a bit heavier than i thought. Do you know if the same drawer will work with the heavy duty guides...the 568H's?

Bob C

[Roland Chung]

Hi Bob,

I'm pretty sure that you will be able to swap out the 562H for the 568H without any modifications. If that is not true, I hope that someone else will point that out for us. I've actually used the 568F's recently and will use them again in a couple of weeks as I will be needing 24" glides for a kitchen - so I think that I know what I'm talking about (but that installation guide is really thick!).

Here is another thought. If you will not be able to return the glides and plan to buy an extra couple of sets (with the old ones just sitting around), consider just leaving the 562's in place. I'm sure it would be better to use the heavier duty glides, but if you are not exceeding the 562 capacity by much, in a non commercial (residential) application, the glides will probably only last 120,000 closing cycles instead of the 150,000 closing cycles that they were designed for (or something like that). Just be sure to use a lot of extra screws instead of the 3 that I think Blum recommends.

How did that shimming work out? Just so I can toss the info into the "computer" for next time, what size shim corrected the problem? And was it hanging out exactly 1/2" on the right side?

Roland

[Bill Fields]

Not sure if anyone mentioned this in all the great advice you got, but also check if the mounting screw heads are interfering. Not likely in your case.

Frustrating, isn't it?

And, BTW, haven't used Blum that much, but it seems your weight requirement would demand Accuride or KV. One of the borgs sells a Asia-made brand that is not as good.

Also, BTW, have not bought from them, but D. Lawless Hardware in Olney IL has prices that are hard to beat/believe. I think it's at www.dlawlesshardware.com (http://www.dlawlesshardware.com).

B

[Rick Thom]

What I've learned to do over the years about drawers. I do a lot of them.
I never staple the rear 1/4" bottom of the drawer to the rear of the drawer until I insert it.
I insert the drawer box fully, then compare both sides of the front of it to the face frame. You need equal distance there.
If its off, then just pressure the side of the drawer box in thats protruding farther out, until both sides are equal. Then remove the drawer and staple the bottom.
Steve, this is a good tip. I've made quite a few drawers and a few have been off just a smidge which is frustrating. Seems that 1mm off gets amplified and then I am trying all sorts of fixes after the fact to compensate. Thanks.

[Bob Cooper]

Rolanda - that's good to hear. i quickly glanced at the spec's for the slides and the offsets appear to be the same so it should work. before i order them though i'll look closely. I'm curious to see if the blumotion mechanism is stronger...i can tell that this heavy drawer closes a lot slower than the lighter ones.

The shimming..we'll i'm "building" a house at the same time as i'm building these cabinets so i've been away from the cabinets for the past 3 days. Hopefully today i'll get back to finish this.

I think it was hanging out more than 1/2"...probably close to the drawer thickness which is 5/8. I'd need to go look at the shim but i think it was around 1/8".

Bill - thanks. The place that i found the lowest prices was a place called A&H turnf in Montana. www.ahturf.com (http://www.ahturf.com).