Low play undermount drawer slides?

[Jamie Buxton]

Blum Tandems have been my go-to slide for a decade. But lately I've been bothered by the left-right play in them. It is fat sixteenth, so it is a problem if I'm trying to hold tight gaps around inset drawer fronts. Does anybody know of an undermount with smaller play?

[Dan Chouinard]

Ditto what Jamie said. The left right play in blum slides makes me bonkers.

[Paul F Franklin]

I use grass undermounts. If you push on them hard you can get them to move a 1/16 or so (this is when they are closed), but you have to push pretty hard, and they reliably return to centered.

[Jeff Roltgen]

Hettich Quadro 4D. Similar to Paul's assessment of Grass. If I try hard, they'll shift, but they're inclined to snap to center. Mostly inset drawers lately and have no difficulty with this at all.

jeff

[johnny means]

Are you saying that they don't consistently settle into your predetermined position?

[Dave Zellers]

I don't have this problem with Blum under mount slides but I always make the inside of the sides of the drawer conform to the hardware. IOW, the drawer fits snugly over the hardware with no play side to side. When I did that the side play you refer to went away.

Blum slides can handle different drawer side thicknesses (up to 5/8") but you want the inside of the sides to rest tight against the hardware.

Not crazy tight, just snug.

[Jamie Buxton]

Are you saying that they don't consistently settle into your predetermined position?

I'm saying they can settle into a position which can vary left-right by a fat sixteenth. That's a problem if I'm trying to hold the gaps around the inset drawer front to a sixteenth or so. Or I can see the issue by letting a drawer close, and then wiggle it right-left to see where it goes. I think that most of these slides are used with overlay fronts, and a little play doesn't matter.

[Jamie Buxton]

I don't have this problem with Blum under mount slides but I always make the inside of the sides of the drawer conform to the hardware. IOW, the drawer fits snugly over the hardware with no play side to side. When I did that the side play you refer to went away.

Blum slides can handle different drawer side thicknesses (up to 5/8") but you want the inside of the sides to rest tight against the hardware.

Not crazy tight, just snug.

I build my drawers to Blum's spec: the inside face of the drawer sides is 21mm from the casework surface the cabinet member mounts to.

[Edwin Santos]

I don't have this problem with Blum under mount slides but I always make the inside of the sides of the drawer conform to the hardware. IOW, the drawer fits snugly over the hardware with no play side to side. When I did that the side play you refer to went away.

Blum slides can handle different drawer side thicknesses (up to 5/8") but you want the inside of the sides to rest tight against the hardware.

Not crazy tight, just snug.

So does accomplishing this require deviation from the formula and table Blum provides in their instructions?

When I have installed Blum Tandems in an inset application, it has still been a drawer overlay rather than an integral front, so my method has been to install the drawer box, and then use shims to locate the front laterally before fastening it. Once installed my experience has been that these slides stay consistent.
Maybe OP is dealing with an integral drawer front? They make an adjustable locking device that will get you a small amount of side to side movement. Have you tried those?
I have shimmed the standard non adjusting locking devices in a few instances for reveal adjustment purposes.

[Jamie Buxton]

...Maybe OP is dealing with an integral drawer front? ...

No, I build drawers the way you do -- an applied drawer front. I do this so that I can micro-adjust the position of the front as pretty much the last thing I do.

[Dave Zellers]

So does accomplishing this require deviation from the formula and table Blum provides in their instructions?

I honestly don't know- I've always done my own measuring and tweaking. My drawers are just a dovetailed box, no applied front. I set the face frame 1/8" past the carcass, install a test drawer slide and then measure the width from slide to slide. I probably add a 64th to make sure the drawer sides won't bind on the hardware. I've had great success doing it this way.

[Edwin Santos]

I honestly don't know- I've always done my own measuring and tweaking. My drawers are just a dovetailed box, no applied front. I set the face frame 1/8" past the carcass, install a test drawer slide and then measure the width from slide to slide. I probably add a 64th to make sure the drawer sides won't bind on the hardware. I've had great success doing it this way.

Thank you!

[joe milana]

I'm noticing the same phenomenon with the kitchen I just finished. 'not sure if it's my imagination, or I'm getting old and sloppy. (Nah!) I even revisited some older kitchens I've done to see if the problem is new or not. I've tried shimming some with strips of playing cards here & there to tighten things up a bit, but the improvement is marginal. I even went so far as to add UHMW plastic strips inside the case to help with side to side alignment. It's pretty Rube Goldberg, but did help. The wider drawers seem to be more of a problem.

[Gustav Gabor]

My solution was to reduce the inside drawer width by about 1/16" from the Blum recommendation. Blum recommends the inside width of the drawer to be 42mm less than the carcass opening width.
I use 43.5mm, which with 5/8" drawer sides gives about 7/32" clearance between the cabinet and drawer per side.
This snugs the drawer onto slide a bit better, an seems to work quite well.
I now also use the Movento slides which have some side to side adjustment.

[Jamie Buxton]

Thank you for your ideas. You've given me several things to experiment with.