Attaching drawer guides to solid sides

[Ed Bamba]

Chest of drawer plan calls for attaching drawer guides to the inside of a 3/4" plywood panel. The panel floats in a frame made up of 1 1/2" legs and 3/4" rails. Instead of ply, I opt'ed to use solid panels (white oak) instead.

The guides are WO too. Would it be okay to screw the guides to the side panels providing I elongate the screw holes to allow for wood movement? The paln also calls for center mount drawer glides. Not sure if I want to make them out of wood or just buy some ready-made glides from the Big Box. Your thoughts and suggestions greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Ed

[Kristian Wild]

That should work fine Ed. Providing you allow for enough movement in the screw slots. You may also want to enture that the panels are seated all the way down into the groove in the bottom rail before you mount the guides so that they aren't getting pulled down as the panel settles.

I've only had to do this once but I've repaired some older furniture that had this guide system. The front of the guide was screwed down tight and the back was allowed to "float" as opposed to fixing the middle and letting both ends float.

If you've gone through the trouble of upping the quality to solid white oak panels why would you go with a cheepie plastic center-mount glide? I'd say either have no glide at all like traditional furniture (this may not be an option) Or go all the way with high end undermount glides like Blum Motion (this too may not be an option providing you havn't left enough room under there).

Kris

[Jamie Buxton]

I dunno about center-mount slides, but most ball-bearing side-mount slides have slotted mounting holes already.

[Ed Bamba]

Thanks for the replies. I thought that my plan would be fine, but just wanted to get another opinion. I haven't made the drawers yet, so my options are still open on the type of center glides to use. Would it be considered over-kill to add center mount glides when side mount guides are used? The drawers are going to be 37" wide, using 1/2" BB ply for the sides, front and back, and 1/4" ply drawer bottoms.

Thanks again, Ed