How to choose drawer slides? drawer width

[Matt Day]

I'm planning out a tall chest of drawers, and am not sure about the slides. The Blum Tandem 18" slides are recommended, but they are $38/pr. I have 6 drawers @ 32" wide, and don't want to spend $240 on slides.

I've done some looking around at Accuride and Blum and note that both give a maximum drawer width, with most being around 16" (for kitchen applications I guess). Why is there a maximum width? I guess I don't understand how the width of the drawer has any effect on the slide (a 100# load is a 100# load, whether it's for a 16" drawer or 32" drawer, right?).

If the width of the drawer really doesn't matter, I was thinking of getting the Accuride 3732 (http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=10950).

What do you all think?

[Tom Jones III]

I used Blum full extension slides for a kitchen hutch for my mother. The drawer slides were specfically requested to match the kitchen drawers in her new house. I found them to work well but they are very finicky to install and IMO not worth the effort unless the drawers will be used very frequently like kitchen drawers. I would never put them in a bedroom chest of drawers.

My favorite way to build drawers in a chest of drawers is the NK style. The Taunton book on chests of drawers includes a good page on how to make them. I'm sure you could find online instructions if you searched long enough - I tried a brief search and didn't turn up anything. Once you see a picture, they are very easy to build and almost foolproof, not to mention practically free.

[Matt Day]

Thanks for the heads up on that article. I found it here:
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/pdf/DrawerBuildingBasics.pdf

That's definitely less cost. Maybe I'll reconsider my design, and attempt some dovetails or finger joints.

[Rob Blaustein]

Hey, thanks for posting that, it looks quite good and I need some drawer education for my current project.
-Rob

[Jamie Buxton]

Yeah, the NK method is great. The only downside is that, like most wood-runner schemes, it is not full-extension. If you can live with that, or even prefer it, it is the slickest drawer scheme I've tried.

[Norman Hitt]

I'm planning out a tall chest of drawers, and am not sure about the slides. The Blum Tandem 18" slides are recommended, but they are $38/pr. I have 6 drawers @ 32" wide, and don't want to spend $240 on slides.

I've done some looking around at Accuride and Blum and note that both give a maximum drawer width, with most being around 16" (for kitchen applications I guess). Why is there a maximum width? I guess I don't understand how the width of the drawer has any effect on the slide (a 100# load is a 100# load, whether it's for a 16" drawer or 32" drawer, right?).

If the width of the drawer really doesn't matter, I was thinking of getting the Accuride 3732 (http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=10950).

What do you all think?

The wider the drawer, the more tendency to has to "Cock/Rack" to one side or the other as it is being pulled out or pushed in, causing it to bind. In the old Traditional furniture, they used a "wood Center guide" to keep this from happening. IIRC, the Blum Tandem, has a mechanism that connects between the two sets of rollers at the back, keeping them both moving at the same rate to prevent this "Cocking/racking" effect. I have used drawer slides on drawers wider than they were designed for, and they worked, but some of the wider ones did tend to rack and bind somewhat, BUT.... I never used them on a drawer as wide as those in a Chest of Drawers. You can also sometimes find a ball bearing "Center Slide", but I'm not real fond of them, as I have had some on Manufactured furniture, and they sometimes have a tendency for the inner track to pop out of the outer track.

[Matt Day]

Thanks for that reply Norman, that's what I wanted to know. It makes cents. I was hoping to get away with the 16" max width slides, but after hearing that I bet I wouldn't be happy with them. Now I have to decide if the smoothness and full extension of a ball bearing slide is worth $250.

Okay, I made up my mind. No.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I'e used center bottom guides and side guides sometimes I've used the side guids to support the drawer and guide it. I have never used a manufactured slide. They are nice but I don't think I'd like them anywhere other than a kitchen.

[John Keane]

May I suggest that you consider making or buying sliding dovetails. Rockler sells sliding dovetail drawer guides for about $5 apiece. You can make them for less than $1. The most recent Shop Smith has an article on how to make them. The best thing about sliding DT drawer guides is that the drawer is going to come straight out and go straight in. No yip and yaw binding. Mark from Laguna Beach had a posting awhile ago about using drawer guides. Might be worth a search.

[Mark Singer]

The NK wood drawers are the best sliding drawers and you can plane the fit to a finely tuned piston like fit... As mentioned they are not full extension... In the metal slide arena the accurides and Blumotion are really good. The cheaper Accurides are just like the Dyna slides ...and they work very well.

[Bill Fields]

No One--I think--mentioned Knapp Voght (KV) -still made in USA -- in Grand Rapids--the office furniture capital.

Look out for the Chinese offerings in (Ithink) HD.


I do a lot of these pull-out/drawer things, and there is still a learning curve for ME.

BILL

[Bill Fields]

SOurce--not tried--but interesting-- www.dlawlesshardware.com (http://www.dlawlesshardware.com)

BILL

[John Huber]

Matt,

You've already chosen not to use metal slides, but I thought that others might be interested in my experience. I have made six chests of drawers using Accuride 3832 slides, with good success. One of them actually is a tool chest on casters for table saw accessories. Ignoring the directions, I made the drawers 30" wide and 16" deep. The bottom drawer is loaded to 100 lbs. When the tool chest rolls over uneven ground, the bottom drawer slides open. Apparently, racking between the carcass and the drawer cause the holdfast catch to release. My fault; not Accuride's.