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Thread: Adjusting 'crooked' drawers / cabinet

  1. #1
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    Adjusting 'crooked' drawers / cabinet

    I was curious what people do to adjust for an inset drawer that sits proud on one side by ~ 1mm.

    Maybe the carcass is out of square, maybe the drawer is out of square,... The drawers are ~30" wide so any small geometry error gets multiplied.

    The slides I'm using are the KV soft/self close variety, KV 8455FM. The slides have little tabs with screw holes that seem to allow for angling the slide off the cabinet, but I'm guessing I should shim behind them with washers or something.

    A couple thoughts I had:

    1) Use washers or bend the slide tabs to 'rotate' the cabinet-mounted slides a little, e.g,. washer at front of left slide and at rear of right slide would rotate the drawer.

    2) Mark the edges of the drawers with a pencil and remove up to 1mm as needed with a hand plane.

    3) recess the drawer fronts 3mm behind the face frame so the result is 2mm recess on one side and 3mm recess on the other.

    Anything else ya'll have tried?

    I wish I had drawer slides that adjusted like the better Euro hinges: twist a couple screws to align everything.
    Mark McFarlane

  2. #2
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    Mount the offending slide 1mm back using different holes.

  3. #3
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    Thanks Jared. Unfortunately I believe moving the slide on one side of the drawer won't do anything. The drawer has to be rotated. Moving one slide back doesn't rotate the drawer, it would just mean that one side closes all the way and the other side doesn't close all the way. The drawer is a rigid square.
    Mark McFarlane

  4. #4
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    I'd hand plane it flush. It's easier than the faff that trying to shim would be.
    ~mike

    happy in my mud hut

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by mark mcfarlane View Post
    Thanks Jared. Unfortunately I believe moving the slide on one side of the drawer won't do anything. The drawer has to be rotated. Moving one slide back doesn't rotate the drawer, it would just mean that one side closes all the way and the other side doesn't close all the way. The drawer is a rigid square.
    Yep, sorry was thinking undermounts.

  6. #6
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    Assuming it has a false front, just take it off, prop up the offending end with a taped on shim and run it through the planer taking off the back side.

    Dan

  7. #7
    Years ago, before switching to strictly undermounts (which include all the adjustments you listed above) I experienced this issue occasionally with side mount slides too. I still have a drawer full of plastic laminate cutoffs, about 1.5" square with a sawblade kerf slot running about 1/8" past center, which were my solution.
    Loosen rear screw on the protruding side, pull slide away from cab side enough to slide that shim in, slot straddles shank of screw. Tighten. Usually, this will solve your issue. If not, add a second one.
    As for any fasteners in between, I'd pull them and adjust with front and rear only, as you could easily warp that slide, creating even more fun. You may need to use a shim half thickness of rear one for the middle one or two, if present.
    Let us know what works out for you.
    jeff

  8. #8
    Shims work up to the point that the slides start to bind due to the opening becoming too small. Side mount slides usually call for a gap of -0"/+ 1/32" per side. You can taper the front of the drawer box on the jointer.

  9. #9
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    A tad more info. There will be 6 drawers.

  10. #10
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    Thanks Mike, Dan, Jeff and Kevin for the ideas. I think I'll start with a shim and see if that does enough without binding.

    Wish I had bought the undermount slides, I'll try them on a future project. I just received about 15 of the full extension slides for this project. I've never had this problem before, hopefully its just the one cabinet being racked a little during install. Its a fairly large cabinet.

    I think I'm going to have a similar problem in an 8' tall cabinet in the laundry room that has a 'coffee center' pullout. I'm thinking of building a parallelogram drawer for the coffee makers. In retrospect I should have added a horizontal brace in the design right below the coffee slide out to keep the cabinet square. It looks like I got a little movement of the birch plywood used for this particular cabinet.

    Designing, building, and fixing mistakes. Lots to learn while having fun. I feel sorry for my friends who have retired and don't know how to occupy their time.

    Thanks to everyone for the assistance.
    Last edited by mark mcfarlane; 01-19-2022 at 8:59 AM.
    Mark McFarlane

  11. #11
    Never had much luck adjusting slides unless its a face frame case with rear mount brackets.

    For that small a discrepancy, I plane the face flush.

    I heard recently there are no Tandem slides to be had anywhere.

    I feel sorry for my friends who have retired and don't know how to occupy their time.
    Had to smile at this. They are probably more sane than we are...............

  12. #12
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    If the drawers are false front, they can also be shimmed instead of planing them tapered. That would require setting the slides back a small amount.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robert Engel View Post
    ...
    Had to smile at this. They are probably more sane than we are...............
    Sanity is highly overrated.

    Thanks again everyone.

    I'll need some practice doing tapers on the jointer.
    Mark McFarlane

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by mark mcfarlane View Post

    I'll need some practice doing tapers on the jointer.
    Stay away from narrow drawers (<8"). To avoid spelching on a box with sides that overlap the front start with the drawer front flat on the infeed table and run the high corner in until the cut is full depth, then make the taper cut. The safest method for dropping on uses a backstop, although I admit I don't do that. For minor adjustments hand planing may work almost as quickly. An edge sander is another, safer tool for fast tapering.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kevin Jenness View Post
    Stay away from narrow drawers (<8"). To avoid spelching on a box with sides that overlap the front start with the drawer front flat on the infeed table and run the high corner in until the cut is full depth, then make the taper cut. The safest method for dropping on uses a backstop, although I admit I don't do that. For minor adjustments hand planing may work almost as quickly. An edge sander is another, safer tool for fast tapering.
    Thanks Kevin. I have a 4" edge sander but the drawers are 6, 8, and 10" tall.

    These are inset drawer fronts.

    I'll do some more research on doing wide tapers and maybe post back in a new thread.

    I'm thinking I'll use the jointer too get close, removing the initial stock from the back of the drawer front, and then fine tune the fit on the front side with a hand plane.

    The final fit hand planing will best be done at the location of the built in cabinet so I may build a little floor level planing bench although I may get by doing the final fit hand holding the drawer front and using a block plane to just trim the edges a bit.
    Mark McFarlane

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