Does anyone know of a source online for plans, photos, or drawings of shop built full extension drawer slides?
I'm designing my shop carts and need to add drawers for holding bits, screws, etc. The drawers will be on both sides of my 24" wide cart so will only be 10" deep. Can't find metal drawer slides that short plus the closest I've found are $10-20 each and with 16 drawers that's going to cost more than the wood I'm building the cart from.
Tillman
If you froogle '12" full extension slide' then you'll find several sources for $8 or so. I've ordered stuff from right-tool and while you won't hear a word from them after the order, it did arrive in a timely manner.
One place I worked I had an ancient filing cabinet with wooden full extension slides. I would _not_ recommend them. Too long a moment arm with the drawer full open led to sag, the tracks were no longer smooth so opening and closing a full drawer took three men and a donkey, all around it was a pain in the butt.
Having had that experience I don't begrudge the slide manufacturers their price--if it's something that has to work and removing the drawer is not an acceptable alternative to full extension then go with the commercial slides.
Can't find metal drawer slides that short plus
Yes you can.
You can get 9.75" full extension slides for as little as $4.92 each in sets of 10 or $6.09 each singly. Take a look here and scroll down the page.
Check out
Fine Woodworking did some several years ago. I made some for a shop cabinet, but they were pretty tedious to make and seem to lack the strength and smoothness of metal slides. I'd recommend against making your own. If you're still interested, I'll see if I can find the issue number.
Kevin
FWW July/August 2000 has the plans for the full ext wood slides I made. I would not do it again.
If you're going to have drawers on both sides of your cart, why not just make full width (depth?) drawers that open from both sides? Then you can use simple wooden drawer runners, since the drawers only open 1/2 way. Kevin
On 7 May 2004 20:50:06 -0700, tillman snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net (tillius) brought forth from the murky depths:
Precision hardware isn't as cheap as wood.
For at least one cart, consider a tiered, pull-out shelf insert which would take several layers and eliminate all but 2 slides for that expanded depth.
Last, but not least, consider using wood as slides for some of the lesser-used drawers. (I have to wax my built-in dresser drawers twice a year, but that takes about 15 minutes each time. They work pretty smoothly waxed-wood-on-waxed-wood for quite a while.) Cut dadoes in the cabinet sides (or overlay 1/2" panels less the slots) and add strips to the drawers as slides.
-- Sex is Evil, Evil is Sin, Sin is Forgiven. Gee, ain't religion GREAT?
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Thanks for the advice all - I've decided to use regular waxed wooden slides on this project.
Tillman
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