A builder's comment about my drawer slides changed my whole approach

Last fall I was installing a set of kitchen cabinets for a client over in Maplewood and this older builder walked through while I was fitting the soft-close slides. He stopped and said, "You're measuring those like they're fixed, but they need a little play or they'll bind up when the wood breathes." I had been squaring everything to the 32nd and fighting alignment for hours on some jobs. He showed me how to shim the back of the slide a hair loose and let the drawer find its own track. Now I leave about a 1/16 inch of movement on the rear mount and I haven't had a single drawer come back for sticking in 6 months. Has anyone else had better luck with a slightly floating mount on their slides, or do you lock everything down tight? I'm curious if it matters more for solid wood drawers versus plywood boxes.

2 comments

Log in to join the discussion

Log In

2 Comments

simonp472mo ago

Six months and no issues, but maybe you just got lucky with the wood movement.

1

blakem132mo ago

Heard a couple of woodworkers talking about this exact thing on a podcast last week. They said the key is letting the boards sit in your shop for a few weeks before you even cut them. @simonp47 might have just gotten lucky, but also could be that his wood was dryer than he thought. Moisture meters are cheap, man. I check every piece now after a walnut tabletop I built twisted on me three months in. That was a rough lesson. You really can't trust what you see, only what that meter tells you.

6