Drawer slides - full extension - adjustments possible?

[Cory filder]

Hello,
I just installed a cabinet of full extension drawer slides. They slide smoothly so my drawer width is good. No binding. I took a lot of care to keep things level, True and within tolerance. The only issue I have is that when the drawers are fully retracted, about half of them retract fully on one side, and on the other side I can push it with my hand and get an extra two or 3 mm. My best guess is that the frame is not exactly 90°. I did check it throughout the construction and some of them are indeed not square despite my best efforts.

I thought that maybe there was some adjustment I can make so that when fully retracted all the faces are in plane with each other. My best guess is the only way to fix this is to adjust the drawer front depth on one side. Is my analysis and solutionCorrect?Also if I am to adjust the depth of the front which I wanted to attach with a Brad nail gun, what is the best way to shim as I don't want to bend the front?

Thanks

[Kevin Jenness]

Hello,
I just installed a cabinet of full extension drawer slides. They slide smoothly so my drawer width is good. No binding. I took a lot of care to keep things level, True and within tolerance. The only issue I have is that when the drawers are fully retracted, about half of them retract fully on one side, and on the other side I can push it with my hand and get an extra two or 3 mm. My best guess is that the frame is not exactly 90°. I did check it throughout the construction and some of them are indeed not square despite my best efforts.

I thought that maybe there was some adjustment I can make so that when fully retracted all the faces are in plane with each other. My best guess is the only way to fix this is to adjust the drawer front depth on one side. Is my analysis and solutionCorrect?Also if I am to adjust the depth of the front which I wanted to attach with a Brad nail gun, what is the best way to shim as I don't want to bend the front?

Thanks

Are you saying that the drawer boxes are out of square and the applied drawer fronts are not in plane? If so you have a few options.
Remake the boxes.
Taper the front of each box so it is square to the sides.
Taper the back of the drawer fronts.
Shim between the boxes and applied fronts. Make sure the fasteners including the pull or knob screws are supported by shim material to avoid bending the front.
With any of these options you may have to relocate the slide members fore or aft on the carcase or drawer box so they bottom out simultaneously. Sometimes you can tweak the drawer front position slightly in this way or by shimming between the slides and the carcase if the boxes are a bit undersized. Some undermount slide clips with depth adjustment can help the problem, but it's a heck of a lot easier to start with square boxes.

[Richard Coers]

Fitting a square into a parallelagram is not going to work. The easiest may be cutting a tapered board to fasten to the front of the drawer and then mount the false front.

[Larry Edgerton]

If you can move the tails of the slide sideways that can take care of it. Move the tails away from the side that sticks out. This will move the front that is sticking out back. It happens, don't beat yourself up.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Are you talking about something like kitchen cabinet drawers mounted with Blum slides? And are the fronts inset or overlay?

I'm not quite understanding, but if you have drawers with overlay fronts where one corner is not touching the faceframe when closed, one solution may be to mount the drawer slides slightly deeper into the cabinet.

[Cory filder]

Are you saying that the drawer boxes are out of square and the applied drawer fronts are not in plane? If so you have a few options.
Remake the boxes.
Taper the front of each box so it is square to the sides.
Taper the back of the drawer fronts.
Shim between the boxes and applied fronts. Make sure the fasteners including the pull or knob screws are supported by shim material to avoid bending the front.
With any of these options you may have to relocate the slide members fore or aft on the carcase or drawer box so they bottom out simultaneously. Sometimes you can tweak the drawer front position slightly in this way or by shimming between the slides and the carcase if the boxes are a bit undersized. Some undermount slide clips with depth adjustment can help the problem, but it's a heck of a lot easier to start with square boxes.

the only issue I have with shims is, when the angle have to match the offset?

Fitting a square into a parallelagram is not going to work. The easiest may be cutting a tapered board to fasten to the front of the drawer and then mount the false front.

what is the proper way to cut a tapered board. I've never seen a taper made where the thickness of the board changes over the length of an entire piece for example 4 feet long. The closest thing I have seen is making your own shims

If you can move the tails of the slide sideways that can take care of it. Move the tails away from the side that sticks out. This will move the front that is sticking out back. It happens, don't beat yourself up.

I'm not sure I want to do that. Everything seems to be working fine and by have the the feeling you will make it worse

Are you talking about something like kitchen cabinet drawers mounted with Blum slides? And are the fronts inset or overlay?

I'm not quite understanding, but if you have drawers with overlay fronts where one corner is not touching the faceframe when closed, one solution may be to mount the drawer slides slightly deeper into the cabinet.

these are shop cabinets. As far as quality goes, I don't care too much. I thought it would be nice just to have a front to cover the slides/ Slides are Richelieu for extension. Fronts are to be inset.

[Kevin Jenness]

the only issue I have with shims is, when the angle have to match the offset?

what is the proper way to cut a tapered board. I've never seen a taper made where the thickness of the board changes over the length of an entire piece for example 4 feet long. The closest thing I have seen is making your own shims

I'm not sure I want to do that. Everything seems to be working fine and by have the the feeling you will make it worse

these are shop cabinets. As far as quality goes, I don't care too much. I thought it would be nice just to have a front to cover the slides/ Slides are Richelieu for extension. Fronts are to be inset.

I'm not sure what your first question means. If I needed to shim the front out 3mm at one side I would use a 3mm shim strip at the front corner and a 1.5mm strip at the center of the drawer, taped onto the box or drawer front.

To cut a taper on the drawer box or drawer front I would use the jointer or edge sander. A hand plane or handheld belt sander will do the job as well.

Shifting the slide members in or out can compensate for small misalignments, as can depth adjustments on some undermount clips. Shimming the slide members off of the cabinet sides can do the same but you will soon hit the limit dictated by your drawer width. You say "Everything seems to be working fine" but by your description it is not- the slide that is not coming home is because it is aligned with the front of an out of square drawer box (or perhaps your case is out of square).

If you want to get the drawer fronts in plane you are going to have to use one of these remedies. You might as well give it a shot so you know what to do when building cabinets that somebody else is going to see. Fundamentally it comes down to accurate layout and cutting so you don't have to fiddle around with tapers and shims when hanging your drawers.

[Jim Becker]

If you are just screwing them into the cabinet materials directly, you can use the elongated holes to provide some level of adjustment for forward/back and up/down. If you are using the 32mm system...you need your cabinets to be square which is kinda important regardless and the goal to be worked toward. If you find your cabinets are not square, depending on how you've handled the backs, you may be able to still adjust them to square without "reinventing the wheel".

[Michael Burnside]

My suggestion is similar to Jim's if I'm following. That said, the first thing I would do is measure the carcass and drawer to see if anything is out of square, particularly front-to-back of the cabinet. You can get away with less than 1/16" and adjust with the tabs that exist on most slides, but after that, you're going to have issues. I've not personally experienced your issue so perhaps post a picture so we can better understand the problem.

[John Kananis]

I would just remake the boxes (if I'm understanding correctly, they're out of square)... also, I would redesign and exclude the slides for lots of reasons (since it's shop furniture), cost and dust being amongst those reasons and save them for a nicer project.

[Ron Selzer]

these are shop cabinets. As far as quality goes, I don't care too much. I thought it would be nice just to have a front to cover the slides/ Slides are Richelieu for extension. Fronts are to be inset.

Work with these, try out the different solutions provided. This way you learn what is important in building cabinets, what can be done to fix without remaking the cabinets and how to fix when it shows up on higher quality cabinets you make. All part of learning woodworking.
Good luck
Ron

[Holmes Anderson]

Yes, if the box slides smoothly and the slides don't have fine adjustment features then just shim the false front. You may regret using brads. Screws will hold better and be easier to back out while you fine tune the shims. The front shouldn't bend much unless you over-tighten the screws. Your post inspired me to fix a catawampus shop cabinet drawer that I have been looking at for a couple of years. This is a 10-15 minute job. Don't overthink it.

[Lee Schierer]

I had the same problem in one of my early cabinet builds. It was frustrating as you well know. Your options are pretty much as Kevin described above. Take this as a lesson learned. Check every drawer box to make sure that both sides are exactly the same length, the same for the fronts and backs before you assemble them. The same thing holds for the drawer bottom. When you assemble the drawer boxes check them for square several times while gluing and clamping. Use just enough clamping pressure to hold the joint. Also when assembling the cabinet, check it for square as you assemble it. Also make sure you assemble it on a level surface. I found out the hard way that one area of my shop floor wasn't flat. It is easy to pull it out of square with clamps and once the glue sets you have a problem.

One thing not mentioned was that you might be able to shim the drawer slides to compensate for the out of square condition. Place shims under the slide where the attaching screws are located. That is how I fixed my original cabinet I mentioned above. Basically, If the left side is flush and the right side stick out you need to rotate the box counter clockwise as you look at it from the top. So put a thin shim under the front of the left hand slide and an equal shim under the back of the right hand slide. Once the drawer is rotated sufficiently add a thinner shims behind each of the the middle screws so that the slide is straight when all the screws are tight. Note, you may have to cut away some of the drawer sides on a taper, if the boxes are tight fits in the cabinet width wise.

I wish you luck.

[Dan Chouinard]

Blum slides have left to right adjustment capability in the rear