I just purchased a handmade piece of furniture resembling a dresser with about a dozen drawers mounted on metal rails. It’s quite heavy, and I need to remove the drawers to move it. Can anyone help me figure out how?
I’m familiar with several types of rails that have catches one can press down to remove the drawer from the rails, and others that release the drawer if you pull it out, then tip the front up. These don’t have any such feature that I can see.
I’m attaching a couple of pictures that show the part of a rail that I can expose. One shows a drawer with the freely moving middle section of the rail pulled out as far as it will go; the other shows the drawer section of the rail exposed by pushing the middle section into the cabinet.
(Please don’t ask me to provide a picture in which the rail is extended more than this. The item is in my SUV, there’s no room in there to pull the drawer farther out, and I don’t dare remove it until I know how to take the drawers out. If I do, I’ll have a piece of furniture that’s too heavy to move blocking my garage door from closing.)
Replies
How did you get it in the SUV? Many runner releases are only accessed with the drawer extended. These look like ball bearing glides mounted on the flat.
If you won't / can't pull the drawer out farther find some help to unload it as is.
You bought it....you own it. So, eventually it has to come out of the SUV. I believe after you get it out you will discover how they release. I have never seen slides that don't have a release.
They look like ball bearing joints which should have a plastic tab located inside the track that you can pull up once the drawer is fully extended. I doubt you are getting them out until you position the drawer to fully extend if so.
Can you pull it out without damaging your car? Far enough to set it down on one corner, then tip it up on end, then back on its bottom. If there still isn't room for both, park outside until you 've moved it.
@_mj_: I got it in with the help of a neighbor who went with me to pick it up, a very muscular guy who works for the estate sale company, and a four-wheel hand truck he had. That neighbor and another neighbor are available to help me get it out, but the first neighbor says he's afraid it's too heavy for us to get into my house safely, and he wants me to find some moonlighting movers on Craigslist. I'm trying to lighten it enough that he will agree (correctly) that it's safe to move.
So in one sense I'm trying to do exactly what you suggested, and in another sense I'm trying to avoid doing what you suggested!
@phantomtrapper: By myself, I can't move it an inch. With the help of my two neighbors I could move it far enough out to open the lower drawers. But it's lying on its back, so I'd be pulling the drawers up, not out, and they're pretty heavy themselves, so that will be dicey unless I know what I'm looking for in advance.
Once it's partway out we either have to lift it to the ground with some of the drawers still in it, or push it back in, or leave my car undriveable, with the tailgate open. I'm reluctant to ask my neighbors to help again Until I'm reasonably sure that I know how to finish the job once we start it.
Regarding the suggested mode of removal, it won't work; the fit is very tight, so the thing comes straight out or it doesn't come out at all.
Better hit the gym and think things through a bit more next time.
I find it hard to believe two strong men with harnesses to shift the load off their biceps and to their core can't handle that with relative ease.
They make harnesses for this that are cheap and work great.
If you've ever seen guys come to deliver a new giant fridge or other appliance that easily weighs a few hundred lbs it's just 2 little guys with these harnesses. They just strap up and walk the stuff right through the door with no sweat.
Search "forearm forklift" for one example...
Thanks to everyone who contributed, and I'm writing to let you know how this worked out.
My two neighbors got the piece out of the hatch and right side up in the garage. Later I figured out how to get the drawers out.
Each drawer slide has an outer rail that slides in a mounting attached to the cabinet, and an inner rail that is attached to the drawer and slides in the outer rail. There is a plastic part on the outer rail that prevents the inner rail from sliding completely out. To remove a drawer I had to bend the plastic parts on both slides (they aren't hinged). Weirdly, I had to bend the plastic part up on one slider, and down on the other.
I also bought a mover's dolly to get the cabinet up the hill to my house. I realized that my hand truck is too small to hold the thing securely. I thought tied-downs would fix that, but I was wrong; they would just prevent the hand truck from staying upright when the cabinet toppled over.
The drawers are now sitting in a stack in the garage, and the cabinet is against one wall, more or less out of my way. Last weekend it was raining buckets, but this weekend I hope to get my neighbors together and move the cabinet into its new home.
Not all that weird... all of the ball bearing slides are the same. Since there are no lefts or rights the releases on a single drawer using them are always "up & down".
Yep....that's a pretty common release.