Drawer and glide lenght selection

[Bob Johnson2]

Building my first cabinet that requires drawers and can find no info on how deep to go with the drawer in the cabinet and how long of a glide to use. For instance...
Figuring on using the concealed roller drawer slides from cshardware, the maesurement from the front of the face frame to the rear 1/4" panel is say 20.5". Do I order the next smaller size, as in 20"? Also when building the drawer how deep do you go, I'm guessing at about 3" short or 17" but that's just a guess.
I can find plenty of info on how wide and high you should go with a given slide but nothing on the lenght.
Do you get your slides before you build the drawers?

Thanks for any help.
Bob

[Richard Wolf]

Your slides should be the same lenght as your drawers. If the drawers are an odd size go to the next smallest slide. The only problem will be that the drawers will not open to full depth, but 2" left unopen should not be a concern.
Make sure you buy the slides first, most require 1/2" clearence on each side but some are different.

I make the dawers as deep as possible and the same size as a slide, in your case that would be 18".

Richard

[John Hemenway]

If you are using undermount slides (Blum or similar) I believe the drawer length is critical. There is a tab that needs to be inserted in the back of the drawer.

Check out Blum specs at http://www.blum.com/usa/en/index.jsp

[Bob Johnson2]

Thanks Guys, that answers my questions. I'll get a few sets of 18" on order.