Drawer Slides

[bole2cant]

We spent the weekend at the St. George (Utah) Parade of Homes--half a dozen million dollar homes (out of 25).

I noticed in a couple of them that the drawer slides were not the usual "self-closers". They actually were hard to pull out for the first few inches and when closing the last few inches would fight to close. At first I thought, electric drawer closers? Then I decided they must have strong magnets. What's the real story of these drawers with an attitude?

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-Doug in Utah

[Leon]

Probably incorrectly installed.

[Upscale]

I agree with Leon, there's probably some construction error. It sounds like the back part of the drawer casing is less width than the front causing the sides to be compressed a bit the last few inches.

[Bridger]

nope. that would resist pushing the drawer in the last bit. OP said the drawer wanted to pull out of his hand while closing the last bit (at least that's how I read it).

sounds like magnets to me. it wouldn't have to be part of the slide, though. a couple of rare earth magnets mounted to the back of the drawer box and the carcase would do it. I have quite a few catalogs of slides, including some expensive specialty ones. I've never seen reference to something that agressively self closing, but I have seen plenty of rare earth magnets for use as catches.

Bridger

[Swingman]

Were they all that way in the same cabinet and throughout the house, or just some of them? May not be the case, but shoddy workmanship is rampant in the building trades ... the selling price of the house makes absolutely no difference. AAMOF, I see horror stories daily in new construction in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in this area.

[L. Wilson]

[bole2cant]

L. Wilson,

I think you may have the answer, but I couldn't tell from the Accuride picture what the mechanism is--probably magnets. They are harder to open but do close nicely.

No, these were not improperly installed. All were the same in two or three houses (WICs), and closed by themselves (last few inches).

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[Unisaw A100]

Hey Doug,

A rule of thumb. Deduct the thickness of your slides and an additional 1/16" from your drawer boxes. It's a whole buncha lot easier to shim the box at the slides than to sand the inside of the cabinet wider.

UA100

[Swingman]

In your original post you stated "hard to pull out for the first few inches and when closing the last few inches would fight to close".

Some of us obviously, and erroneously, took that to mean they were hard to open ... and you had to "fight to close" them.

Sounds like they were operating per the "self closing" design of many of the modern drawer slides on the market.

Sorry for the misunderstanding. (it was all Leon's fault)

[Len]

Built a drawer like that once. Called it "wrong".

[Rick]

Is this a standard rule for all drawer building applications? TIA, Rick "Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day,fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way......"

[Unisaw A100]

It's hard to say how widely it's practiced though here locally it's fairly standard.

Also, when it comes to systems like Blum Metabox I'd have to defer to someone using those systems.

UA100