What's wrong with these stupid drawers? Help!

8 years ago

I purchased a linen tower with regular slides on the drawers but I want slides with a touch open mechanism so I bought new slides. Fortunately, the holes for the new slides lined up perfectly with the old screw holes so I didn't have to worry about leveling the slides or making new holes.

Since I'm using the OEM holes I expected everything to just work. BUT... The damn drawer faces aren't straight. When I close the drawer, one side of the drawer face is recessed and one side protrudes from the cabinet. The face itself is plumb from top to bottom but from left to right it is not even.

Here is a photo. This shows the drawer as it is closing. You can see when the left side of the drawer face is lined up with the cabinet the right side of the drawer face is still sticking out. I can push it in and get the slide to catch but when it is closed the left side of the drawer face is slightly recessed into the cabinet and the right side protrudes. Then when I try to activate the push-to-open, the drawer sticks because the alignment is off and there is a lot of friction.

Isn't this weird since I'm using the original holes? Shouldn't everything be automatically lined up? What kind of adjustment do I need to make so that the left and right sides of the drawer are even?

And yes, the drawers looked perfectly fine with the original slides, everything was nice and even.

HELP!

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Comments (3)

ci_lantro
8 years ago
The photo isn't showing me much.

Better photo?

Is the tower installed?

But, given the description, it sounds like the carcass is out of square. Get it squared up and the drawers should work as intended.
uscpsycho thanked ci_lantro
uscpsycho
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
It's really hard to get a good photo representation of what happened. I annotated the photo below. This is looking down at the top of the drawer face. In the photo the back of the drawer face is even with the front of the cabinet. The left side of the drawer face, where the yellow circle is, is even with the cabinet. At the same time on the right side of the drawer face, where the red circle is, there is a significant gap. Something is out of whack.

The tower came assembled, I didn't put it together.

The carcass being out of square would make sense but everything is straight and even with the factory drawer slides. But when I change the slides, using the exact same holes, the drawer is all screwed up. Are some slides less forgiving than others? The factory slides are thin and wimpy looking. The new touch slides I installed are big and beefy. Relevant?
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ci_lantro
8 years ago
Use a framing square to check the carcass.

If that's not the problem, it may be how the slides are mounted. Make sure the end of all of the slides are flush with the front of the cabinet.

I'm dealing with some Fulterer slides right now; there is a front to back adjust screw where you set the depth of the slide before you install the screws that hold the slide to the side of the cabinet.

Are some slides less forgiving than others?

I have limited experience and with only 3 different brands but, if you talking about ball bearing side mounted slides, NO, I don't think so. They've all been pretty exact about how to mount and the acceptable tolerance margins are quite slim.

One other thought...Are you having a problem with all the drawers, or just one? if it's only one or two, then the drawers might not be in square. Check those too.