Everyone is familiar with a child’s playground slide. The slide material is either plastic or aluminum. The child easily slides down because the slide is elevated on one end (gravity)…and the low level of friction between the clothes (often denim) the child is wearing and the slide material.

Cabinet drawers are similar, but installed perfectly level, so there is no gravity advantage. Let’s quickly look at the drawer slide options available.

In the beginning…

I suspect some of you have seen older dresser drawers that were made of wood and had wooden tracks the drawers slid on, often lubricated with paraffin…or more recently the plastic stack of 3 or 4 drawers, where the plastic drawer slides on plastic tracks. These are rudimentary. The problem being…the more weight you put in the drawer…the more friction between the drawer and the tracks…thus, the harder to move the drawer…in or out.

The Old Standby…

There may have been earlier models, but around the 1960’s, the modern drawer slide came into common use. These designs are all ¾ extension. For a discussion on that see this page https://www.rolloutkitchendrawers.com/why-34-extension-slides/ on our website. If you pull out your knife and fork drawer, it is likely that style of slide. A slide package comes as 2 sets…an inner set, that screws to the drawer…and an outer set, that screws to the cabinet wall. The slides are metal tracks with a nylon coated roller on one end. This invention took friction out of the equation. You can load these drawers heavily, and they still glide easily. Thus the term “rollout”, or “roll out”, drawer.

One point of note. As the inner (on the drawer) and outer (on the cabinet walls) set of slides have to interlock to function properly, the width of the drawer has to be made to precise tolerances. This is easy to do when the cabinets come from the factory equipped with rollouts. Alas, many cabinets come today with just 2 shelves behind a cabinet door. When trying to convert an existing cabinet that originally came with shelves, you have to consider the opening of the door and the thickness of the door hinges. The drawer has to be able to roll out past any obstructions. This means the drawer width must be quite a bit narrower than the cabinet walls. This creates a problem because the slide set attached to the drawer do not interlock with the slide set attached to the cabinet walls. The solution is to move the outer set of slides towards the inner set of slides using spacers attached to the cabinet walls…of just the right thickness to interlock the drawer slides. This can be challenging at times. Another option…the one we chose…is to attach the outer rails to an existing shelf. We designed a ‘U’ shaped base member to which the outer slides are attached such that the whole assembly could be screwed to the shelf.  We ship our base member fully assembled…so all you have to do is place 4 screws into a shelf to complete the installation.

 

A Later Feature…

Later, full extension slides were developed. These combine the inner and outer slides into a single unit with ball bearings between the 2 slides. Full extension slides are typically more difficult to remove the drawer from the cabinet than the ¾ extension style slide…and roughly twice as expensive at this point. Personal opinion…they do not roll as easily as the ¾ extension…but are robust, carry a lot of weight, and extend the drawer out fully.

The Latest Feature…

Soft Close/Open. These are sophisticated engineered products at a premium price. Tap to open…tap to close. Targeted for the high end of the market.

 

A Word About Slide Orientation

When you look at a bunch of different drawers, you will see some with the slides mounted horizontally on the bottom of the drawer. Imagine driving your car on 2×4’s over a ravine. What would hold more weight and flex less…a flat 2×4…or a vertical 2×4? Vertical, of course…you have 4” of thickness vs 2” of thickness. Same applies to drawer slides. Enough said.

 

If you have any slide questions, drop me a line…I’ll be happy to answer them.