Conner

I'm building a pantry cabinet for my kitchen that will have a slide-out shelf unit. The cabinet is pretty big; the sliding unit will be about 6' 8" tall and a little less than 11" wide. If I construct it out of 3/4" birch plywood as planned I am estimating the sliding unit with the cover-panel to match my other cabinets will weigh 65 pounds or so. Pretty heavy.

Anyway, I'm thinking of using these KV 8000 undermount slides for the unit: http://www.knapeandvogt.com/8000_Und...ils.38#details.

My concern is that those slides are the most heavy-duty I can find other than some really expensive ones that hold like 500 pounds, and the KV 8000s are rated to 130 pounds.

Do people think 130 pounds, which means about 65 pounds for the unit and only 65 pounds for food, will be adequate? If not, can anyone suggest an undermount slider rated for around 200 pounds? Alternatively, I could use two sets of these sliders for the shelf unit, wouldn't that double the capacity. Is that how the math works? I would do that but these sliders aren't that cheap, so that's kind of a last resort.

Thanks!

cabinetman

If it were up to me (and it isn't), I wouldn't use undermount slides as it would make the pull-out too top heavy. I would make the pull-out like a tall drawer, and use two sets of side mount full extension 100lb capacity slides.

This site has great prices. If you scroll down you'll see 21 3/4" are only $7.43/pair.

woodnthings

And just to be sure, since food cans can be heavy, you can use 4 slides and do a nice job of concealing them into pockets , if the appearance bothers you. My pantry is in 3 drawer cabinets under the counter and those drawers can get very heavy with cans, can't it? bill

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GeorgeC

I have done exactly as recommended here. Though nothing as big as you are planning. My tallest has been 30 inches. It works very well.

Are you planning on using the 3/4" ply on the back of the unit? I really see no need for such heavy ply if that is your plan. You could reduce the weight a lot by using thinner material.

G

Conner

Thanks for the suggestions. Cabinetman, that's where I've been ordering my hardware and you're right, they have the best prices as well as good service.

I will think about using regular side-mounted slides and try to get my head around it. I may go that way in the end. To be clear, are you suggesting (a) still just build one big shelf unit and use the two pairs of slides on it, or (b) build the pantry shelving in two separate units (one upper, one lower) and mount them independently each with a set of slides? Hadn't considered that.

If I were to use the undermount slides I was planning to mount a regular side-mount slide on the top of the shelf unit, mounted on its edge, which would slide in and out on the top, and should keep the top of the shelving unit aligned vertically so it wouldn't tip out. But your idea may be better and cheaper anyway.

Thanks again for the quick input.

clampman

Conner,

This may be too late, but I would be reluctant to use those at 130 lbs. Canned goods weigh like lead.

I built a number of them using ones similar to your link made by accuride. I tried to look up the number for you but, like most corporations, accuride is run by an idiot, and I don't have a week to find out if they have them on their website.

My old catalog is in the shop. The slides which are 10 feet from me do not have a model number next to the accuride trademark which is clearly visible. The model number is probably inside the slide and to get it would require destroying the slide.





At any rate, I can't remember how expensive they are, but they are rugged enough to hold up vertical pantry shelving full of pickles, soup etc. They have the two angle irons, and for pantrys like these pictured, I was able to split a pair, using only one of the rugged ones per slide out "drawer" that I mounted underneath on a chunk of poplar, seen below. You can barely make out the angle iron on top of the poplar. The other angle iron is screwed up into the back of the drawer (1/2" prefinished maple). You can also see it on the drawer on the left in the same picture below. The white you see on top in the picture is the bottom of the bottom shelf and does not touch the angle iron which is screwed into the poplar block (unpainted). You will notice that there is very little clearance between drawers using this method, and little space is lost.



I used a file drawer slide mounted sideways up top and screwed to the top of the unit. To do this so that both bottom and top slides hit the end of travel at the same time takes a bit of diddling before you mount them. Also, the file drawer slide must be "hard mounted" without using the little clip things or it will flop around when mounted sideways instead of vertical like they are supposed to be.

This particular unit is in my own house, otherwise I'd have used the same type slides mounted top and bottom. But I was short of cash at that stage, and was using leftovers from other jobs.

Just like those ugly screws . But they only show when you are laying on the floor looking up.

Good luck.

Cheers,
Jim

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Conner

Thanks for your post, the pics are helpful.
I've actually just ordered my hardware this weekend. I ordered the bottom sliders because I like the idea that the weight will be resting on them pushing down to the base of the cabinet and the floor rather than hanging entirely from the sides of the cabinet. BUT I'm also using a pair of the slide-mounted drawer slides midway up the cabinet that should add an extra 100 pounds or so of capacity. Hopefully the set-up will give me 230 pounds of total capacity.
Thanks again for your advice I'm going to check out those Accuride slides for future reference.

clampman

Conner,

Sounds like you will be fine if you can use a pair of hanging slildes. Your shelf configuration must be different from the one I pictured which is completely open to the refrigerator side. I couldn't use side mounts for that reason as well as the resulting loss of space.

Don't forget to post pics when you get er done!

Cheers,
Jim

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