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A few questions
Post by Jerry on Dec 12th, 2010, 1:20pm

Greetings. I am an amateur cabinet builder. I have built two so far and found installing drawer slides to be the most painful time consuming less satisfyingly step of cabinet construction. Any tips on how to install the slides so the drawer glides as smooth as the ones on display in the big box stores?

Second question is this, is there any advantage to keeping the cabinet dimensions the same as off the shelf cabinets? I ask this because we are renovating a house which requires all new cabinets, bath and kitchen.

Thanks,
Jerry
Re: A few questions
Post by mike on Dec 12th, 2010, 2:33pm

Well there is not a real good way to put guides in but what works for me is to put the cabinet member in and the drawer part on the drawer and turn my cabinet on its back and insert the drawer in the cab. member,then slide it down and square it up and put one screw in the boots set the cab. up try it to see if you are satified with it then finish putting the screws is and you got-er-done grin like i said works for me
Re: A few questions
Post by trulycustom on Dec 12th, 2010, 2:39pm

Jerry, I sure don't profess to know everything about the cabinet business but I will give you my insight on what works for me.
I agree, installing drawer slides can be very frustrating. I am guessing you are building face frame cabinets. I built a couple of jigs to help me end the adjust, adjust, adjust cycle. I built a spacer that hangs off the side of drawer slide that equals the distance from the drawer slide to cabinet side. I just clip the spacer on and hold the slide against the box side and screw in the bracket when the slide is level (also using a jig). There is probably a better way, but this works for me. There are also jigs to be purchased that help mount the slide hardware.
Also, the amount of forgiveness in the slide can matter greatly, as well as drawer box dimensions and squareness, type of slide used, etc.
On the other questions I build the cabinets to fit the wall width with as little "filler" use as possible so I often deviate from Std. cabinet widths. That being said, when it comes to vanities the tops come in standards sizes so a lot of vanities are built with the top in mind so not to add extra expense to get a custom top vs. a standard size. Heights are usually pretty standard. Also keep in mind that your sheet stock is usually a std. 4x8 so cabinet dimensions usually utilize that stock as efficiently as possible without having a bunch of odd size remnants left over.
Hope that helped. I am sure that you will get lots of good ideas from this forum. Good luck in the future.

kent
Re: A few questions
Post by abu on Dec 12th, 2010, 5:32pm

For the drawers , Mike's way is probably the best and most inexpensive way of installing drawer guides. I use a very similar method. The fact is that there really isn't a way to get around the adjustment issues. But in my opinion this method will get you closest fit with minimal tries.

As for "standard" cabinet sizes, these are fabricated for semi-custom kitchen designs. They need to be standard sizes because they are factory made and production needs to be consistent and profitable. As a result, fillers are usually required where the space exceeds cabinet dimensions.
A fully custom cabinet/kitchen is designed and built to the exact specifications of the space and usually built by cabinet shops. In your case desing and build the cabinets to the specifications you need to eliminate filler strips. Keep in mind however, that certain minimum industry standards do apply such as 36" sink bases, 36" refer openings. etc.

I hope this helps. any other questions just ask away....

Tony
Re: A few questions
Post by Jerry on Dec 12th, 2010, 6:03pm

Thanks alot for the ideas on mounting slides. Yes I do face frame cabinets. The dimension I was referring to was the length of the cabinet. One of the cabinets I did was for our bathroom. I built it to the standard depth because of the top but made it higher so we didn't have to been over as far. It is much easier on our backs.

Jerry
Re: A few questions
Post by abu on Dec 13th, 2010, 07:21am

I've seen cabinets as tall as 38" for taller people and if I'm not mistaken, they're reffered to as Executive Height cabinets.
Now of course the drawback is that modications need to be made to accomodate the appliances.

Nonetheless, good for you on your success......!