Thoughts on Wooden Drawer Slides

[MarvinWatkins]

I am considering building some bathroom cabinets for our master bath. With any cabinet project, drawers are a necessary component. I have built a couple of other cabinets and used basic wood-on-wood drawer runners. More exactly, I used wood drawers gliding on that slick drawer runner tape on a wood support.

So far, this has worked out pretty well, but those projects do not get a lot of everyday use.

Can you guys share your thoughts and experience with using wood-on-wood drawer runners? If you don't use wood-on-wood, what do you use and why?

Thanks for your inputs!

 

[Matt Furjanic]

Here are two ways I use all the time:




Matt...

 

[Bill Clemmons]

I've gone almost exclusively to wood-on-wood for my drawer runners. The only time I use metal runners is for large drawers designed to carry a heavy load. I try to use only good hardwood for the drawers. If I have to use pine or poplar, or even plywood for shop drawers, I add a 1/8" hardwood "slip" on the bottom to absorb the wear. To improve the flow, I shellac the drawers, then apply paste wax. They work very smooth.

 

[bluedawg76]

as Bill said, a good hardwood runner will last -either a center runner as shown above or just using the webframe. I would add that you could increase the bearing surface of the drawer side by adding a drawer slip if you were concerned, but drawer slips are traditionally used w/ very thin drawer sides (3/8").

 

[MarvinWatkins]

Thanks all. Sounds like I am heading in the right direction with some good company.

 

[ehpoole]

The one thing I would add when designing anything that requires wood and moving parts in a bathroom is to be aware of your tolerances wherever two moving pieces must move past one another.

Bathrooms (specifically those with tubs or showers) are subject to much wider humidity swings, not just seasonally but daily, that most other furniture is not, so it is important to ensure that your tolerances are sufficient to prevent unwanted binding when the wood swells a bit.

None of which should discourage you from using wooden slides or runners if that's the way you wish to go, it's just something to keep in mind as you are refining the fit.

 

[Jeff]

+1 to Ethan's advice on wild humidity swings in a bathroom. Quartersawn wood is probably a good bet where binding may be problematic. The other option is a good quality high ply plywood (Baltic birch) where acceptable to you.

Tolerances can be calculated accurately for a given wood species and the expected extremes of humidity. There's a good article by Christian Becksvoort at FWW: "Stop Guessing at Wood Movement". It's easy to follow his calculation methods.

This reference is handy for < $10.

http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=46281&cat=1,46096,46109

The other thought is that the bathroom humidity fluctuations are short term on a day-to-day basis so the effects on wood movement may not be as extreme as anticipated.

 

[Pop Golden]

I use wood drawer slides on just about everything. The exception is weight. Drawers that are going to carry heavy items seem to work best with drawer slides. When I use drawer slides I tend to go with roller bearing full extension slides.

Pop G

 

[Joe Scharle]

The IDIOT rule is more important in wet rooms than anywhere else, if you're using flat or even riftsawn lumber.