Not a beginner woodworker, but complete novice at cabinetry and have recently just finished a fairly odd sized built in for an alcove area for our bathroom. The carcass turned out great and fits very well. The problem I am having is with the drawer slides. Oh man did they kick my tail the first time I tried. I was SURE I had everything installed correctly and then when I put the drawer in...well, let's just say it was probably the worst motion of a drawer I have ever seen! Oh well, I learned a bit that is for sure.
The slides that I have are 12" (with rear extension brackets added) KV 3450FM. Carcass does have a face frame. Two door cabinet on bottom and a wide drawer on the top, separated by a stile. One unfixable mistake I made is that I actually added a spreader flush with the top of the stile that separates the cabinet and the drawer. It's not a huge deal, I don't think, but makes installation slightly a little more difficult.
A few other problems that I caused was that I wasn't mounting the front of the slide 1/16" back and I had the Bottom of the slide sitting directly on top of the spreader/top edge of stile instead of raised about a 1/4". Pretty sure this doesn't matter too awful much in the grand scheme of things.
One thing that does matter that I thought I had measured for and it was within tolerances was the clearance between the drawer box and the frame. I thought the drawer was 1" exactly smaller than the frame, but after my frustration, I measured again, and the box is actually 1 1/8" less wide and I believe this was the cause of most of my problems as when I tried to close the door, it was super tight, especially the further I pushed it back. I can overcome this fairly easily by shimming 1/16" on each side. Or maybe even an additional 1/8" on one side as I can adjust the face of the drawer to still look centered.
As I was reading the instructions again, very carefully, I noticed that it said that max drawer width is 24". :surprise2: Didn't even see this when buying the slides. My drawer is wide, but shallow and won't be holding more than probably 20 lbs max ever. They are 32" wide x 13" deep.
I can't seem to find any side slides that have a max width of more than 24". I know bottom slides would work well, but I have already built my drawer box and there is only 1/4" reveal on the bottom instead of the 1/2" that seems to be required.
If I have researched correctly, this max width is there because the wider a drawer the more precise you have to be in installing to prevent racking. I have the ability to be super precise so I think I am up to it; however, was curious if there was something else I am missing. Can I make these work if installed well, or would just using the epoxy euro style slides instead be easier (e.g. Blum 430E4000V)? I am not married to the soft close bearing slides. This will be in a bathroom of our house that we are remodeling to sell, so I just need it to work in general, the rest is just icing at this point. Thanks!
The slides that I have are 12" (with rear extension brackets added) KV 3450FM. Carcass does have a face frame. Two door cabinet on bottom and a wide drawer on the top, separated by a stile. One unfixable mistake I made is that I actually added a spreader flush with the top of the stile that separates the cabinet and the drawer. It's not a huge deal, I don't think, but makes installation slightly a little more difficult.
A few other problems that I caused was that I wasn't mounting the front of the slide 1/16" back and I had the Bottom of the slide sitting directly on top of the spreader/top edge of stile instead of raised about a 1/4". Pretty sure this doesn't matter too awful much in the grand scheme of things.
One thing that does matter that I thought I had measured for and it was within tolerances was the clearance between the drawer box and the frame. I thought the drawer was 1" exactly smaller than the frame, but after my frustration, I measured again, and the box is actually 1 1/8" less wide and I believe this was the cause of most of my problems as when I tried to close the door, it was super tight, especially the further I pushed it back. I can overcome this fairly easily by shimming 1/16" on each side. Or maybe even an additional 1/8" on one side as I can adjust the face of the drawer to still look centered.
As I was reading the instructions again, very carefully, I noticed that it said that max drawer width is 24". :surprise2: Didn't even see this when buying the slides. My drawer is wide, but shallow and won't be holding more than probably 20 lbs max ever. They are 32" wide x 13" deep.
I can't seem to find any side slides that have a max width of more than 24". I know bottom slides would work well, but I have already built my drawer box and there is only 1/4" reveal on the bottom instead of the 1/2" that seems to be required.
If I have researched correctly, this max width is there because the wider a drawer the more precise you have to be in installing to prevent racking. I have the ability to be super precise so I think I am up to it; however, was curious if there was something else I am missing. Can I make these work if installed well, or would just using the epoxy euro style slides instead be easier (e.g. Blum 430E4000V)? I am not married to the soft close bearing slides. This will be in a bathroom of our house that we are remodeling to sell, so I just need it to work in general, the rest is just icing at this point. Thanks!