Overlay Drawer Alignment Problem..Please Help

[Johnnyy Johnson]

I am having trouble getting my overlay drawer box to align correct to the face frame. I have a box I built with dovetails. Everything is sq. regardless of how I check it. Corner to corner with tape rule. Two foot sq and 12" combination. Cabinet is sq checked by same method. I am using Blumotion Tandem 563H slides and the orange fully adj. T51.190-0101 latch. I air nailed a pc of board to simulate the drawer face. (to be removed later) The left side of the drawer hits the face frame first and the right side is held off 1/8". I can take my finger tip and just push lightly and it goes in. To get it to close correctly I had to adj the drawer latch adj. all the way to the right. That makes the gap on the left side 1/8 wider than the left, but the drawer closes perfect. Once drawer front is installed the gap can not be seen. Tomorrow I think I will take the right slide screws out and use the long gated holes to move the slide in/out an 1/8 to see if that helps. Any tips that can be passed on will help me greatly.

This project is for the new bathroom cabinets I am building. When I put the center section in (sink section) I had the same problem with the two small drawers on each side of where the sink will go. I worked to no end in the shop and could not get the left side of each drawer to stop hitting first causing a small gap on both other sides. Once I had the cab in the bathroom I tried one more thing. I pulled the drawer out and removed the two screws on the left slide and closed the drawer and let it self align. It closed perfect. I put the screws in the new location ( Had to use the L brackets on the small drawers).They were 3/8 off. I fixed the other drawer by same method. I will have two drawer banks, one on each side of the center pc. On the drawer problem above I did not use the L bracket. I aligned the side partitions with the inside of the face frame. No need for the L bracket. I thought it would be a breeze to align the drawers with no L bracket. Boy was I wrong.

Anybody that has built a lot of drawers and installed them please make some suggestions. It would help me a lot. I have looked at many Youtube videos and it all looks so easy. No one ever addresses what problems can pop up.
Thanks
Johnny

[glenn bradley]

The drawer being square is, of course, important for better built items. The carcass they go into have to be just as square. I would check the carcass and glide alignment (influenced by the carcass perhaps) and see how they are.

[Martin Wasner]

How big is your notch in the back, and are the index holes drilled well?

Pop the drawer out of square in your favor. Sometimes you make a drawer that's just cranky and doesn't want to sit well despite everything seeming correct. Likely small cumulative errors screwing you over

[Lee Schierer]

The left side of the drawer hits the face frame first and the right side is held off 1/8". I can take my finger tip and just push lightly and it goes in. To get it to close correctly I had to adj the drawer latch adj. all the way to the right. That makes the gap on the left side 1/8 wider than the left, but the drawer closes perfect. Once drawer front is installed the gap can not be seen. Tomorrow I think I will take the right slide screws out and use the long gated holes to move the slide in/out an 1/8 to see if that helps. Any tips that can be passed on will help me greatly.

I would suspect that the left drawer slide needs to have the front moved slightly to the right or the back of the slide moved to the left. You may have to do the same to the right side slide.

[Johnnyy Johnson]

Hi Martin.. I dont remember the notch width. Will have to check tomorrow, but I see how it could cause problems. As far as the index hole I use the blum jig for all that. I know the blum specs I printed out calls for the collar on the 6mm bit to be set at a mm depth. Since the slides will work for 1/2 and 5/8 box sides I think their spec is for the 5/8. I have been wondering if my holes should be 1/16 deeper. Actually when I came up to the bathroom and decided to let the drawer self align, I brought my drill to make that hole a little deeper.

[Johnnyy Johnson]

Hi Lee..I have been a member on this site since May 2009....It is time that I need to be a contributor. Please PM me the steps I need to take this or a link to a thread with instructions. Thank you!!

[johnny means]

First step is to remove the drawer box and see if the slides both close in the same way. These slides have complicated little stops and catches they can get misaligned or out of sequence. Of course, I'm assuming that you've checked the placement of the slides in the case and on your drawer boxes. I like to trouble shoot with the slides in the case without the box, then also with the slides on the box without the case. Helps to isolate th issue

[Johnnyy Johnson]

Hi Johnny Means...I did check the slides with the box out. Since I could just barely touch the right side of the box and it would close tight, I though it may be a slide problem. So I changed out the right slide and got no improvement. Going to remove box tomorrow and start over looking for something wrong. I was so careful putting everything together. I used spacers cut to length to support the slides in the back while putting in the screws. It was my intent to re cut the spacers when moving down to the second drawer just not got that far. Still just cant get past being able to barely push on the right side and it close perfect with all adjustments set to their mid adj. Something is wrong in the last two inches of travel. It could be as Martin asked about the notch in the back. Maybe the right slide notch is 1/32 or 1/64 to narrow and not letting the drawer self align in the last two inches of travel. Also, the index hole may not be deep enough..but why can I just barely push it and is closes perfect, almost like slide is not strong enough to close that last two inches.
Thanks Johnny