Interlocking Drawer Slides?

[Paul F Franklin]

As I work on building two desks for our home office, I've started preliminary design work for the lateral files that will come next. Thinking typical two drawer lateral files, maybe 32 inches wide or so. They'll be letter size, so drawers will be about 13 1/4 deep, not counting the finished drawer front.

As I was researching suitable drawer slides, I came across the Accuride 3641x. It's a heavy duty, side mount, full extension + overtravel slide. But it also has an interlock feature to prevent both drawers from being open at the same time. Seems like a good idea to reduce the chance of tipping, but I don't know how important it is for a two drawer file. These don't seem to be a very common item, and I haven't found any similar setup from other slide manufacturers.

Anybody out there use these or something similar? Any thoughts on whether they are really needed for a two drawer file? I'd appreciate any insight.

[Bruce King]

Standalone unit will tip even with one fully open drawer if the open drawer is heavy and the closed drawer light. What just popped in my head is make the top removable so a heavy weight like a barbell can be put into a pocket at the inside rear.

[Jamie Buxton]

CompX offers anti-tip hardware which is independent the drawer slides you choose. Here's one source -- https://www.wwhardware.com/compx-tim...ystem-tlsn-400 It also is inexpensive, and works well.

[Ben Ellenberger]

It seems like the drawer would need to weigh more than the other drawer plus the whole rest of the cabinet to make it tip. If it is just paper files I wouldn’t worry about it for a two-drawer cabinet. All the three-drawer or more cabinets at work had the interlocks, and the mechanisms on some of them got inconsistent. I wouldn’t want an interlock unless i needed it.

[Lee Schierer]

I recently built a two drawer lateral file for our home office. The drawers are 36" wide and 10" tall and 16" deep. I used full extension slides for wide drawers. When the upper drawer was opened even when empty the cabinet wanted to tip. The cabinets was placed against a wall and anchored into the studs in the wall.

One other point is you need to make sure your drawer slides are able to be used with a drawer that is 32" wide. Most manufacturers place limits on drawer width so the slides don't come apart due to the drawer twisting from being pulled from only one side.

[Brian Tymchak]

It seems like the drawer would need to weigh more than the other drawer plus the whole rest of the cabinet to make it tip. If it is just paper files I wouldn’t worry about it for a two-drawer cabinet. All the three-drawer or more cabinets at work had the interlocks, and the mechanisms on some of them got inconsistent. I wouldn’t want an interlock unless i needed it.

I've got a couple 2-drawer file cabinets, built in Oak. They are filled with typical paper records and will tip if both drawers are open. They don't even have full extension slides. The silver lining here, I guess, is that I have to prune the upper drawer contents on a regular basis.

[Paul F Franklin]

Thanks for all the good suggestions! I'm trying to avoid having to attach them to the wall to prevent tipping as that really limits moving them around, even for cleaning. They should just be full of paper files, but there's no guarantee what my wife will do with hers I think adding some weight in the space beneath the bottom drawer would be a reasonable step. My speaker stands are loaded with lead shot and that works well. And that compx interlock is sweet as some cheap additional insurance. I'll be sure to use slides rated for the weight and the width of the drawers.

Thanks again!

[Lee Schierer]

Thanks for all the good suggestions! I'm trying to avoid having to attach them to the wall to prevent tipping as that really limits moving them around, even for cleaning. They should just be full of paper files, but there's no guarantee what my wife will do with hers I think adding some weight in the space beneath the bottom drawer would be a reasonable step. My speaker stands are loaded with lead shot and that works well. And that compx interlock is sweet as some cheap additional insurance. I'll be sure to use slides rated for the weight and the width of the drawers.

Thanks again!

You can certainly add more weight in the bottom of the cabinet, but you need to take some factors into account. Let's say each empty drawer weighs 15 pounds and the cabinet weighs 30 pounds. The center of mass (60 pounds) with the drawers closed is about 7" back from the front edge of the base and all is well because the weight is pretty much centered on the base of the cabinet. Now pull out the top drawer and you have now shifted 15 pounds to a point about 7 inches to the front side of the base. The cabinet is still stable. If you then pull out the second drawer you have moved 15 more pounds 7 inches in front of the front edge of the base and the cabinet is still on it's base but not very stable.

500 sheets of paper weigh about 6 pounds and take up about 2 inches of space when tightly packed. Each of your drawers can potentially hold about 15-16 packages of paper or 90-96 pounds. With two drawers full of paper you now have 180-190 pounds + the drawer weight hanging from a point about 7" in front of your base. That means you would have to add at least that much weight to the base of your cabinet to prevent tipping, since you cannot control how much paper eventually ends up in the drawers.

So potentially your fully loaded cabinet with counterbalancing weight is going to weigh about 250 pounds when empty and somewhere north of 400 pounds when full. Your interlock will help, but you would need to balance the weight in the two drawers fairly close.

[Jamie Buxton]

I built a lateral filing cabinet once, and put it on casters to help move it around. I learned that a bad thing about casters is that they move the pivot center of the cabinet away from the front edge - particularly when the wheels rotate back toward the rear. That is, the casters make the filing cabinet more likely to fall over forward.

[Tom Bender]

The bottom of a filing cabinet is accessible by reaching thru empty portions of the bottom drawer when it is open. This makes it a pretty good hiding place for some of your gold.

[Paul F Franklin]

Good tip Tom. Say, whereabouts in MI are you anyway....just curious.....

[Lee Schierer]

The bottom of a filing cabinet is accessible by reaching thru empty portions of the bottom drawer when it is open. This makes it a pretty good hiding place for some of your gold.

Not anymore