using a ball bearing drawer slide flat

[Justin Rapp]

I am looking to build spice rack pull outs for kitchen and saw a few pre-made models such as the one below. It looks to be using a regular side-mount drawer slide but flat, however it isn't a standard undermount type slide. I would suspect that a side mount slide will not fair well in a flat mounted orientation. Any idea what kind of slide is being used here?


https://www.upperslide.com/product-p...large-us-303dl

[Justin Rapp]

here is another example of the slide

https://www.amazon.com/Pull-Spice-Ra...089KR1MN9&th=1

[Jamie Buxton]

Yeah, ball bearing slides intended to mount flat under drawers do exist. For instance, Accuride makes them. https://www.accuride.com/hardware/Flat--Mount

[Paul F Franklin]

For light duty like a spice rack, I'd look at center mount slides, the kind that mount under the center of small, light drawers.

[Justin Rapp]

For light duty like a spice rack, I'd look at center mount slides, the kind that mount under the center of small, light drawers.

I did find those since i posted however they only pull out to about 70%, so multiple racks side by side won't have full use of the depth.

[Eric Arnsdorff]

I put a couple of heavy duty side mount ball bearing slides (like those shown under the spice racks) under the trash can holder I made under our kitchen sink. I had a couple and tried them out by mounting and putting some weight on them and they appeared like they would work. I needed the clearance so I thought worst case is they don't work and I pull it back out. That's been quite a number of years ago and it still works well.

While I suspect none of the side mounts have a rating for this orientation, I expect they would work well for something as light as a small spice rack.

[Justin Rapp]

Yeah, ball bearing slides intended to mount flat under drawers do exist. For instance, Accuride makes them. https://www.accuride.com/hardware/Flat--Mount

Thanks - these are massive slides, supporting large drawers, so they might not work for this situation, having a 2 - 3 pound pull out. I did find a flat mount list with lighter duty slides but it's Accuride's europe site. The produce #s seem different here in the US.

https://www.accuride-europe.com/en/b...mounted-slide-

[Brian Runau]

Using a slide 90 degrees from it's design puts the load on the ball wear path in an area not designed for wear. Shorter life. Lighter load may be ok...

[Steve Jenkins]

I’ve used the Accuride 3832 flat in light duty situations with no problem. Check with Accuride to find out for sure but I think they derate 50%.

[Justin Rapp]

I’ve used the Accuride 3832 flat in light duty situations with no problem. Check with Accuride to find out for sure but I think they derate 50%.

Steve,

Thanks - this is good to hear. I don't expect the weight of these little spice rack draws to go over 3 pounds. There will be 6 spice jars and a small drawer to hold them for each glide. I did look and found no derate for the 3832, but others that are purpose designed to work either way have a flat rate of 25%. Given a pair of 3832 will hold 100 pounds, a single at 50 pounds, a 3 pound load is only 6% so i'll give them a try.

thanks much.

[Mark Bolton]

Unless you absolutely need the clearance of the 1/2" slide on the flat you can also use a standard deck mount undermount soft close slide (Salice is what I run) and you'll get much smoother action, full extension up to 22", and silky soft close unlike ball bearing slides that are never as smooth.

Spice pullouts I usually do are larger/taller than the little style in the photo you posted and when the anticipated load will be higher than a heavy undermount will handle (135lbs) we run 2 ball bearing slides vertical on the bottom and single on the flat at the top as a guide to keep the pullout centered at the top.

Ive only seen the same thing Steve mentions in any US literature that the heavier slides are the only ones with a de-rated flat mount load capacity though we've all seen the cheap chinese pullouts like your photo running ball bearings on the flat. Side mount ball bearing slides are always less than desirable to me even when mounted conventionally.

[Justin Rapp]

Unless you absolutely need the clearance of the 1/2" slide on the flat you can also use a standard deck mount undermount soft close slide (Salice is what I run) and you'll get much smoother action, full extension up to 22", and silky soft close unlike ball bearing slides that are never as smooth.

Spice pullouts I usually do are larger/taller than the little style in the photo you posted and when the anticipated load will be higher than a heavy undermount will handle (135lbs) we run 2 ball bearing slides vertical on the bottom and single on the flat at the top as a guide to keep the pullout centered at the top.

Ive only seen the same thing Steve mentions in any US literature that the heavier slides are the only ones with a de-rated flat mount load capacity though we've all seen the cheap chinese pullouts like your photo running ball bearings on the flat. Side mount ball bearing slides are always less than desirable to me even when mounted conventionally.

These spice pull drawers will be small, inside the upper cabinet, 12 inches deep, 6 spice jars pull little drawer. 3 pounds of weigh max, so i don't think a good side mount used flatwill go bad so fast.

[Jim Becker]

Justin, my personal opinion, not backed up by science or specifications, is that for your specific application, there is not likely going to be any issue using the slides in a "non standard" orientation. As you note, the weight is minimal for the need. In fact, I've got a similar situation in our new-to-us kitchen to solve and I think you just nailed the solution.

[Justin Rapp]

Justin, my personal opinion, not backed up by science or specifications, is that for your specific application, there is not likely going to be any issue using the slides in a "non standard" orientation. As you note, the weight is minimal for the need. In fact, I've got a similar situation in our new-to-us kitchen to solve and I think you just nailed the solution.

Glad I was able to help. I am still sorta working out the design. At least I just resawed and milled down some maple to 1/4 thickness to start building some boxes to fit the spice jars we bought.

[Curt Harms]

I put a couple of heavy duty side mount ball bearing slides (like those shown under the spice racks) under the trash can holder I made under our kitchen sink. I had a couple and tried them out by mounting and putting some weight on them and they appeared like they would work. I needed the clearance so I thought worst case is they don't work and I pull it back out. That's been quite a number of years ago and it still works well.

While I suspect none of the side mounts have a rating for this orientation, I expect they would work well for something as light as a small spice rack.

I did something like that for a lid rack some years ago. Accuride had a chart on their web site with weight ratings for slides in both vertical and horizontal mounting. I recall that the horizontal mounting weight capacity was roughly 70% of vertical mounting but then my recall ain't what it once was.