Drawer Slides - How long?
I will be building some shop cabinets in a couple of weeks and need to buy some drawer slides. I have virtually no cabinet making experience, so I am indeed a bit green. If my base cabinets are 24" in depth, how long should my (full extension) drawer slides be? I am guessing 22" slides should work well. Does it matter if the cabinets are to be face frame or frameless (I am leaning towards frameless).
The lengths I can get are 18", 20", 22" and 24". 24" would be too long for a 24" base cabinet, correct? What about 22"?
Consider Type of Hinges, Placement & Door Clearance
My favorite tools are my graph paper, ruler and pencil. Depending on what types of hinges you use, they could potentially conflict with the rollout shelves. In base cabinets your conflict is likely to be with the bottom shelf.
Depending on where the cabinets are placed, you may only be able to open the door 90 - 105 degrees. For instance a cabinet in that sits in a corner. A hinge that might clear your opening when the door is open 180 degrees now blocks your rollout shelf from going anywhere if the door is only opened at 90 degrees. Also if you go with a frame, consider the type of door design you use. Full overlay - then no problem, partial overlay then if your drawer fronts extend beyond into the face frame void, you can again have some conflict - worse if you go with inset doors. Of course this isn't just a function of the length of the slides, but the length of shelf and how you attach it to the slides.