making wooden, center mount drawer guides

[mr_skittle]

I've been working on a couple of dressers for my kids and all the casework and joinery is finally done. Now comes the task of making and fitting all 12+ drawers. I can't say I'm looking forward to it but, you gotta do what you gotta do. It's not a dresser without drawers. The image shows the dresser minus the top and back slats. 

Along with all those drawers, I'm looking at making some traditional, wooden slides that mount to the bottom-center of them. This is totally uncharted territory for me and I'm looking for any input folks may have. Please don't hesitate to pipe up with demands for clarification or details. As I said, this is totally new to me. Rockler sells the things for $10 a pop but they look pretty easy to make. (link here) I have to save that money for the darn drawer pulls.

A few questions that have come up so far:
- Is this method the best way to go with the Stickley dressers I'm building? In other words, what other options do I have consider the construction?
- should they have to be a dovetail or can they just have square sides? I have a really nice quality cherry dresser (from in-laws) that has them and they are square. 
- Do wide drawers need 2? 

   

   

[cpolubin]

I made about 20 of those for a dresser and chest of drawers for my daughter and sil. I bought 1 from Rockler and used it for a pattern. They weren't hard to make.

As to square sides or dovetail, the dovetail will keep the drawer centered and also help keep it from tipping as it's pulled out. Square sides will only help keep the drawer centered. You'll have to deal with the tipping separately.

Cliff

[DaveR1]

Are you really set on center guides? Are the drawers already made?

[mr_skittle]

Are you really set on center guides? Are the drawers already made?

I am not set on center guides and the drawers aren't made yet. I've only got all the parts finished to rough size. It sounds like you might have something else in mind. With the fit of the drawers, I'm not sure what other options I've got for traditional methods. I am staying away from modern, ball-bearing slides. Not because I have any problems with them, it's just that these two pieces are a labor of love for my kids and I'm looking to complete them without a single piece of metal, besides the pulls.


The drawers are flush with the front when closed and they also fill up the entire width of the opening. I figured that since they are the full width, any slides or guides on the sides won't fit.

[Willyou]

I built a cherry chest of drawers for my wife several years ago. I wanted to do it without the typical metal slides, but try as I may could not make the guideless "piston fit" drawers work without binding (they are about 4' wide). I ended up making center guides with square sides and using HDPE tape for the sides of the drawers to slide on. It worked and continues to work beautifully. I used what is known as a "kicker" board to keep the drawers from tipping too much. I elected to NOT use the dovetailed guide because I figured that as the drawer was pulled out and tended to tilt, it would put a tremendous amount of stress on that piece and it would eventually split or wear badly. An installation hint: Make your drawer complete with half of the guide mounted to the underside. Then mount the other half just at the front of the carcass and insert the drawer. Then align and center the drqwer and then fasten the rear of the guide. Of course, you are doing this prior to putting on the carcass back.
There are some other alternatives if you want to go to some extra trouble. You can make full extension slides out of wood and they work quite well. Here is one at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p7cYb-jjT8. I haven't built it, but it looks like it would work well. Finewoodworking Magazine #143–July/Aug 2000 Issue has instructions on another style which I have made and they work very well. The latter are not particularly attractive, but very functional.

[fredhargis]

I've built several dressers with center guides, and mine were always just the straight sided kind. Just a strip in the center of the drawer opening, the 2 strips on the drawer bottom that were located to be on each side of the first. True enough, they don't help with tipping....that doesn't really seem like such a big deal t me. The drawer has support from the frame that keeps it from tipping until the very end of it. One thing that happened to me was I didn't center the guides with teh same precision on each drawer, so they had to be marked to keep the correct drawer in it's own opening. These dressers were made with just that convention.

   

[Joel H.]

One point, when I built for center slides, I included a center rail in the drawer dividers.  This allows for support along the whole length of the guide piece.  I’m not sure it’d be required with square sided glides, but it would be for dovetailed glides to hold them flat when the drawer is 1/2 - 3/4 out. 

Just a consideration. 

Joel

[mr_skittle]

Thanks for all the information folks. After reading through all this, and spending lots of time poking around an old dresser at home, I'm getting a good idea on what needs to happen. Making them looks easy as pie but I'm still not clear on how best to mount them.

An installation hint: Make your drawer complete with half of the guide mounted to the underside. Then mount the other half just at the front of the carcass and insert the drawer. Then align and center the drawer and then fasten the rear of the guide. Of course, you are doing this prior to putting on the carcass back.

Thanks Willyou, this comment does a lot to clear things up on getting them mounted accurately, but there's an order of operations thing here that's confusing me. Do you fit your drawers while the carcass is still dry-fit and not glued up? How else do you do it without the back on? The backs on mine are basically frame & panel, but the panels are multiple slats. Now I'm trying to imagine how to install the slats after the carcass is glued up.... I think it might be doable.

I have to reiterate that there is NO room on the sides of the drawers for any sort of slide, modern or traditional. The side of the drawer will be directly against the inside of the case. The NK style drawers would be a viable option but I think I'm too far past the point to make them I already have all my drawer-sides stock milled and ready to go. To mill up and make the bottom slide piece on them is more than I'm willing to get into.

fredhargis, those peices are amazing. They are nearly identical to the Stickely one's I'm making. Are they from plans or did you use the style to fit your own (or a client's) needs? I need to ask, what was your process to install the slides? Did you do it with the back on or after final glue-up?

My daughter really loved the Wardrobe dresser from the Stickley catalog so we compromised and replaced the top six, small drawers on her's with a more traditional wardrobe top of doors with some drawers and open storage behind a set of doors. That way I can still make identical cases and most of the drawers for both. I have a feeling this will be the norm for my children, my daughter asks for the modifications while my son is fine with, whatever.

[jteneyck]

Stickley has always used side hung, center guided drawer slides.  This method addresses all the shortcomings of traditional drawer guiding mechanisms.  The side hung feature keeps them from tipping forward and also prevents the sides of the drawer from wearing out, while the center guide keeps the drawer centered in the opening.  

Link

John

[fredhargis]

fredhargis, those peices are amazing. They are nearly identical to the Stickely one's I'm making. Are they from plans or did you use the style to fit your own (or a client's) needs?  I need to ask, what was your process to install the slides? Did you do it with the back on or after final glue-up?

That dresser on the left was a plan in Wood Magazine some years ago. I've built 2, one for my mother and this one for our daughter. The one one the right is essentially the same thing with that wardrobe door. That one I kind of worked up on my own. These were a wedding gift to out daughter so she and here husband could have separate dressers.