Drawer slide installation

[Rick Herrick]

Hi folks, new here. Getting close to retirement and hoping to do wood working most of the day going forward. Just going through the motions of getting equipment, deciding on layout (2 car garage) and figuring out what more electrical I need to put in.

In the middle of my first big project for my wife's sewing room. I am doing three base cabinets, each with a top drawer and a bottom pull out (for machines, large attachments, etc).

My issue is slide troubleshooting. All three top drawers work in all three slots but in some combinations, I run into one issue I don't know how to fix. With the drawer all the way in, the lower right hand side is a little spongy. You can press on the drawer side piece on the left side and its very solid. But when pressing on the right side, its a little proud and spongy, guessing about an 1/8" of play. I can move the drawers around and it doesn't appear to be one drawer box or one cabinet opening. I can live with it as is but I see a lot of drawers in my future so I need to get a firm grasp on install and troubleshooting these issues.

I had started with both my cabinet and drawer pieces flush with the face face but am now finding out I should probably set both back about 1/8", which I am in the process of doing.

I really feel both my boxes and cabinets are square so I think I am doing something wrong in the placement of the slide pieces. I started with Promark full ext, soft close but have changed out to ProSeries, full ext, NOT soft close. I did not have this issue with Promark but I no longer want the soft close feature.

Thanks for any pointers

Rick

[Jamie Buxton]

What is your in-stop on these drawers? That is, do the drawer fronts overlay the carcass, so the in-stop is provided by the front hitting the carcass? Or is the drawer an inlay style, so the in-stop is provided by the slide parts hitting each other inside the slide? Or do you have some other in-stop method?

[Rick Herrick]

Thank you. I hope I understand your question. The cab has a 3/4" face frame. My drawers are 3/4" ply on all sides. They will eventually have a nice 3/4" front panel but I haven't decided what I want to do there. At this point, I am trying to get the drawer box flush with the outside of the face frame. The width of the drawer was sized to be 1" less than the opening (1/2" thick slides) and the height was 1/2" less than opening to give me 1/4" both top and bottom. So far that looks pretty good.

I originally had both the cabinet slide and drawer slide both flush with the outside of the face frame but have read more and I am changing mine to 1/8" inset for both. Hoping that will help 'pull' the drawer better back into the cabinet.

To answer your question, I think my set up is "Or is the drawer an inlay style, so the in-stop is provided by the slide parts hitting each other inside the slide?"

[Steve Jenkins]

It sounds like the slides aren’t set even front to back either in the cabinet or on the drawer

[Malcolm McLeod]

It sounds like the slides aren’t set even front to back either in the cabinet or on the drawer

.. might also check for the guides being out-of-square relative to the cabinet front. If they are installed in a parallelogram fashion, one side will stop short. DAMHIKT.

[Rick Herrick]

.. might also check for the guides being out-of-square relative to the cabinet front. If they are installed in a parallelogram fashion, one side will stop short. DAMHIKT.

Thanks Steve and Malcolm. Since the initial Promark slides didn't give me this issue, I assume now that when I installed the ProSeries, I did something wrong. Spent most of the day trying to figure out that you are both on the right track. Its amazing how a little thing like a 1/32" or a 1/16" can cause so many problems. Thanks for the help.

[John TenEyck]

Another way one corner can end up spongy is if the slides aren't coplaner.

John

[Larry Edgerton]

Redundant answer........... never mind.

[Lee Schierer]

Check your drawer box to make sure it sits flat on a flat surface. It is not unheard of for a drawer to glue up out of flat.

[Rick Herrick]

Thanks, I do check that as I am sanding them and getting prepped for finish. In this case I think I have solved most of my problems by being very picky about the placement of both slide components, front to back. Most YouTube videos I have watched just simply measure and screw in but in my case, I have to really focus on even the smallest measurements. Thanks to all.

[Lee Schierer]

When I go to mount the drawer fronts, I always put some weight in the drawer, before I mark the mounting holes in the back of the drawer front, to insure the drawer front will be properly aligned in use.

[Rick Herrick]

Excellent tip, thank you. Never would have thought about that.

[lowell holmes]

Uhh, check and see if the frame the slides mount on are plumb and square.

Been there, done that.-

[mike waters]

Did you get the issue resolved?