Blum wants a notch cut in the back of the drawer to accept their drawer slide. By their directions, the notch needs to be 1/2″ deep and flush with inside of the drawer side. My concern is that I will cut off the half pin at the rear of the drawer side . I guess that I should add that the back of the drawer is joined to the side with through dovetails. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks
Rick
Replies
As in my younger day.. We would say .. SO?
Not to worry..
Yeah, that happens. Generally they stay attached, but sometimes they get knocked off and you have to reglue them. They don't serve any structural purpose, but just fill the hole.
Thankyou. It takes a while to make these drawers and I get a bit protective of them. Thanks for helping me put that in perspective.
Rick
There is another approach... Do like the 18th century cabinetmakers, and only dovetail the drawer fronts. At the rear, just dado the back into the sides, and nail through the sides into the back. Then you can cut out the Tandem notch without losing any pieces.
Okay, if nails is too extreme for you, use some other joint at the rear -- just not dovetails.
Jamie
Thanks, I thought of this approach unfortunately too late for these particular drawers. Next time.
Rick
Rick,
If I'm not mistaken, and I've installed 100's of these, the notch they want is for the little tab that holds down the back of the drawer and keeps it from tipping when extended. All you need to do (in the future) is make the drawer box 3/8" short of the slide length, and allow the drawer bottom to extend that 3/8" past the drawer back piece. The tab will hook onto the drawer bottom without making any notches in the drawer sides or back.
DR
DR
This is a great tip. Thank you very much. By the way Happy Thanksgiving.
Rick
"...and allow the drawer bottom to extend that 3/8" past the drawer back..."
Great tip! My experience is that this only works with 1/2" thick drawer bottoms. With 1/4" bottoms there is a pretty big gap to the tab.
The other aspect of this approach that is implied is that the drawer back is cut shallower than the front & sides so the bottom can slide in under the back. This is the way I build them - gives flexibility down the road if'n there are problems with the bottom. Also, if you are making them from raw wood, it's easier to spray without the bottom on.
Well, I almost always use 1/2" for drawer bottoms. Standardizing just makes production easier in many ways. But if you need to you can bend that tab down a bit for a thinner drawer bottom, or take a little bite out of the corner of the drawer bottom if it is too thick. As for making the bottoms slip in and out from the back - it has so many advantages I can't imagine doing it another way. Ease of finish, tweaking the squareness of a drawer, etc.
DR
I use Blum Tandem slides, as well. I make the drawers out of 1/2" maple with finger joints at the corners made on the table saw. The bottom pin is 3/4" which allows for the 1/4" bottom panel and the 1/2" cut-out on the back. That way, you're only cutting out the rear lower pin and that's not affecting the integrity or appearance of the joint. The rest of the pins at the corners are 1/2". That's just one solution to the problem. I'm sure there are others.
By the way, the first time I used Blum Tandem slides was for a kitchen 14 years ago. I really liked them and have used them for a couple of other kitchens since then. However, this past summer I noticed that a number of the slides in this first kitchen were sticking badly and others had become very noisy. I called the company and they said they didn't recommend lubrication and that I should just send back a sample slide and they would replace all of the defective ones. Boy, there are not too many other companies out there with a real life-time warranty. Still, I hope I'm not going to have to replace all of the slides down the road. They called and told me that they were sending some "newer designs" so maybe they corrected the problem some time ago.
ChipTam
ChipTam,
They have made improvements in the design since then, but the slides are still susceptible to dusty conditions. Never oil them with anything, and keep them away from dust in the shop or even flying sawdust at installation time. You should not expect any problems down the road. But the company will stand behind you if anything does come up.
DR
Ring,
All good points regarding the instalation and maintenance of Blum drawer slides and I've pretty much avoided all of the "don't"s which you mention. So, I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why they failed. They worked very smoothly for 12 years. In the last two years, four or five sets (out of a total of 16 drawers in this kitchen) became noisy and this past summer they were really stiff to open and close. However, hats off to the company. How many woodworking products are backed up with a life-time warranty? In fact, the replacements arrived this afternoon (about a week after I sent back a sample defective slide).
ChipTam
Edited 11/23/2005 3:10 pm ET by ChipTam
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