Been building cabinets for 8 years and just figured out my drawer slides were off

Last month I was putting together a set of kitchen drawers for a client over in Oakville and I kept fighting with the slides. They would bind up about halfway out no matter what I did. I figured it was the slides themselves, maybe a bad batch. After swapping three pairs and still having the same problem, I took a step back and actually looked at my drawer box measurements. Turns out I was making the boxes exactly 1/2 inch too narrow for the slides I was using. For almost a decade I had been cramming those slides in there and wondering why they never ran smooth. My old boss never corrected me on it, he just always said to make it tight and it will break in. Has anyone else had that moment where you realize you've been compensating for a basic mistake this whole time?

2 comments

2 Comments

blake3021d ago

Man you just made me realize something about my own work that I never even thought to question. Ive been building drawers for about 6 years now and I always thought the slides were just supposed to be tight, like your old boss said. But lately I started noticing my drawers getting hard to pull after a year or so and I bet its the same thing. The real kicker is that nobody ever checks the actual specs on the slide package because you just assume you know the dimensions. I think most of us learn from someone else and just copy their mistakes without ever second guessing. Its kind of wild how many bad habits we carry around without ever realizing theyre wrong.

william_taylor1d ago

Tight slides can work fine if you account for seasonal wood movement in your build.