metal drawer glides or just wood on wood….
I’m planning on building some a dresser for my bedroom. The case will be solid wood, but I will probably buy some plywood boxes to use as drawers. Then I will make a solid woof front to apply to the plywood box.
In the past when making cabinets I’ve always used metal drawer glides, typically side mount.
Thinking of most dressers I’ve experienced in my lifetime – the better ones are just wood on wood. Sometimes the drawers bind and don’t slide so nicely (on the lower quality dressers).
Is there a typical rule of thumb for when to use metal drawer glides vs. just having wood on wood? Also – when using drawer glides, I typically make the drawer 1″ narrower than opening. What should the size be – if I don’t use metal glides? Do you just take an 1/8″ off, so you have a 1/16″ gap on either side?
If this is relevant – my designs typically do not have a face frame.
thanks for any tips here…
Replies
It's your build -- use whatever you like!
I use Blum undermount drawer slides for kitchen cabinets and shop furniture -- things that get heavy use. For something like a dresser, I personally wouldn't use metal slides.
Consider making your own wooden drawers -- not plywood. It makes for a better drawer, and you'll be happier.
If you do use metal slides, buy them first. Each brand has pretty specific formulas for sizing the drawer box to the opening. Their is no general rule.
I'm not sure wood slides will be a good idea with plywood boxes
Most plywood is poplar cored which is too soft to make a decent wear surface.
One consideration is the function of wood on wood vs metal slides. Wood on wood only open perhaps 2/3 of the way. Metal slides are typically full extension, so I use Blum Tandem slides even in fine furniture applications. Just drives me crazy not being able to fully open drawers. But then I am an avowed nontraditionalist...
Wood is fine - it has been used for centuries.
Metal is better - lasts longer, full extension, smoother, soft close. Cooooool.
How often do you plan to open the drawer, how heavily will it be loaded?
Once a night with pills in it, or four times a day with tons of heavy paperwork or your collection of tungsten cubes?
I use metal slides where I need full extension such as shop furniture and under-bed storage. I use wood everywhere else. I'd also use metal in the kitchen but just haven't ever made a kitchen unit as buying them is cheaper.
My night stand has wood runners. I leave a suitably proportioned gap, usually 2mm - just over the 1/16 you mention.
Look up the NK method of drawer making. There's a good article about it on the FWW website:
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2001/08/01/a-better-way-to-build-drawers
It provides for a way to greatly reduce the wear of wood-on-wood from drawer opening, as well as a method to put a drawer-box on to a separate bottom with a separate drawer front.
Wide runners in the bottom component reduce wear and prevent sticking as they keep the drawer sides away from the cabinet sides they're housed in by a hair's breadth.
Personally I find metal runners in a traditional cabinet ruins the look & feel of such a piece. They have their place as highly functional open/closers in some cases ..... but they're ugly things.
There are also various methods (using drawer stops) of preventing a wooden drawer from pulling too easily from it's drawer 'ole whilst still allowing the drawer to be pulled out most of the way.
Lataxe
I have used wood for my built in Shaker style assembly of cupboard and drawers in our bedroom. I used hard maple laminated on the drawers to minimize wear on soft wood. I also used my old xc-ski hot wax technique to melt in paraffin on the runners. Rub it on, heat gently with torch to melt, then rub it in. Repeat 1-2 times. Been good for 25 years.
I did not use metal slides in my dresser build - it was never even a consideration since this was an heirloom type piece in my mind ball bearing slides would be a sacrilege. Personal choice/personal opinion I hate to see a beautiful chest of drawers with ugly slides. So IF I were using them, they would be hidden slides, which I understand are getting hard to find.
If made and sized properly they will slide very easily. The key is keeping the tolerances tight so there is no chance for racking and tilting.
In regards to the NK method, even poplar drawers will outlast our lifetimes. Hardwood runners are more important.
Wow, beautiful dresser! I'm new to working with cherry and have been struggling with the blotchy appearance of stain. Using a wood conditioner seems to darken it too much. What finish did you use on this dresser? Will appreciate any advice.
Plain old Danish oil. The drawers are figured veneer.
thanks for all the tips - sounds like it is basically personal preference. I agree that metal slides just do not look as nice as wood. If I go with metal - they will be bottom mount. I'll check out the NK article.
It depends on how you make them. For wooded full extension drawer slides, do a google search for "full extension wooden drawer slides" and you will find two or three designs. For some, it doesn't matter how or from what kind of wood you make your drawers. I have made several sets of these using hardwood like oak mounted to plywood drawers:
https://www.finewoodworking.com/2000/08/01/full-extension-wooden-slides
They work great and can be constructed to carry a heavy load. I have made some heavy enough that I can stand on them like a step to reach a higher shelf. Some of the others look better, but these are quite functional.
I've made two dressers. I used no slides at all. I find it can be convenient to take the drawers out when doing seasonal clothing changes. Plus, slides inevitably eat up room that could be used to store more things in a larger drawer.
The one place I would consider an exception is in very large drawers. It gets harder to keep them straight without slides, whether metal or wood.
If we are making heirloom pieces to last, they need to be repairable. I have just repaired a 3 drawer chest of drawers that my mother bought 60 years ago, when it was already very old, and worn. Both the drawer sides and the drawer runners in the cabinet were very badly worn, and 5 of the 6 drawer stops were broken or missing. Repairing the bottoms of the drawer sides was easy; repairing the runners inside the case was much trickier. I repaired the worn areas by first regularizing with a router -- the drawers with a router table, and the runners with a trim router and some serious head scratching/scheming. It was not straightforward. In the world of machine engineering, a relevant principle is to make the easy-to-repair part softer than the hard-to-repair part. Plan for the wear to be where you can most easily deal with it. When filling in the routed out areas, I use hard maple for the runners and walnut for the drawer sides (because walnut is softer than hard maple, the chest was made of walnut, and I had perfect scraps on hand.)
The original drawer stops were thin strips glued to the bottom board of the openings, which contacted the bottom edge of the back of the drawer front. A standard method, but one which tries to tear the drawer apart every time it is closed. I replaced them with adjustable stops that contact the back of the drawer side. I'll put in a picture. This was learned from an old FWW article, and was very helpful in this case because the chest front and the drawer fronts weren't very flat or even after all the years, and it would have been hard to get the drawers looking even by guesstimating with glued in stops. The basic idea is to use a wood disk with a screw hole drilled off center, making a "cam". Get the disk rotated to the right spot, tighten the screw.
Just a bit more historical info: my mother saw this painted chest at an auction, looked inside and saw the backs of the walnut drawer fronts and hand cut dovetails, and realized what it was. Fortunately, she was the only one who realized it. Bought it cheaply and started removing the 10 or so coats of paint. Danced for joy when the walnut burl veneer started being visible. Was not so happy that the top was a weird replacement: a pine board that had been used somewhere else before, that wasn't long enough so a narrow board was nailed front to back at one end to finish it out. We speculate that it might have had a stone top on it originally. I made a nice new walnut top for it that it should have had long ago.
Wooden runners have several qualities to recommend them: They work wonderfully when drawers are well fitted. When it comes to fine furniture, they're the gold standard.
https://www.mcdvoice.org/
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