Re: wooden drawer slides

If one does not wish to waste hardwood on the drawer sides, can one use plywood for the drawer side, cut a dado in the plywood side and then dado a strip of hardwood to insert into the plywood side dado to form a hardwood surface for the drawer slide? Basically line the plywood side dado with hardwood. Or even line just the upper surface of the plywood side dado with a hardwood strip since there is the only real surface contact to the runner anyway. Just a thought . . .

Depends on the size and contents of the drawer. I usually let the drawer sides take the weight on the supporting drawer panels. For a large or wide drawer, I install a muntin down the middle of the drawer bottom with a harwood strip on the supporting drawer frame. That helps stop racking and binding which can be a problem with the larger drawers.

Depends on the wood you are using--some move a lot more than others. Depends on the environment (humidity changes) too. Plywood is very stable. If your drawer from have a lip you can leave a 1/8" gap all around (1/16" in winter months). Fitting a drawer into a carcass can be tricky business. Before you put on the case back you may want to fit the drawers first. Carbon paper is a useful tool.

Warning: The following may upset some people's aesthetic senses. (In some applications, it would offend mine.)

One approach I have thought about is using UHMW or HDPE polyethylene for the slides/runners. I am considering this for a project in a bath with 6

2.5" high drawers stacked between two cabinet doors. Kind of like a skinny built-in hutch. No drawer would hold more than a few pounds but in the bath there would be lots of changes in humdity. I happen to have some scraps around from a project and there is a nearby place that sells cutoffs somewhat cheap if I were to need more. (Whether it would be cost-effective to buy strips from lee valley for this, for example, don't know.) This way, you would be dealing with only one component changing size -- the dado in the drawer -- and not even that if you put the slides under the drawers. Plus UHMW and HDPE are inherently slippery.

Also, a 3/4 x 3/4 piece of UHMW or HDPE might not be as rigid as a piece of oak, so you might need a few extra fasteners to hold it straight -- or a shallow dado should also work. On a 16" deep drawer, for example, I might use 3 screws (countersunk if it will run in a drawer dado) and a couple of brads. Of course, glue won't help.

Note: While UHMW cuts with standard saw blades -- I find about 24-40 teeth in a TS blade about right -- when cut it creates cotton candy-like balls versus chips and dust. Just kind of weird, w/ its static electricity, to clean up. HDPE is not like this -- more like wood.