High-quality fittings- this is a prerequisite for the manufacture of high-quality cabinet furniture. From technical characteristics components depend on the strength, durability and comfort level of kitchens, chests of drawers, cabinets, cabinets and wardrobes.
There are several types of retractable systems, differing in design complexity, cost and ease of use:
- roller guides;
- ball guides;
- metaboxes;
- tandems;
- tandemboxes;
- Legraboxes.
Typically, installing drawer slides is a simple process that even a non-professional can handle. Installing drawer guides with your own hands will require careful study of the instructions, a little time and skills in working with a screwdriver.
Roller guides for drawers
These guides are commonly used to make furniture in mass production. Made of steel, applied on top epoxy paint white, grey, black or Brown. The length of the guides can be different: from 250 mm to 600 mm in increments of 50 mm. It is specially selected to fit the size of the boxes.
The weight that the roller guides keep in motion is no more than 15 kg. Significant disadvantages of this type of guides are their noise during movement, fragility and incomplete rolling out of drawers.
Installation of roller guides requires precise calculations. If the calculation is incorrect, the service life of the rollers is significantly reduced, and early problems with the movement of boxes are also likely to occur.
for drawers
Manufactured from stamped steel with an anodized finish. Their design is fundamentally different from roller guides. To slide the box along the runners, a cage with metal balls filled with a viscous lubricant is used. This results in relatively quiet operation and increases service life. There are models equipped with built-in closers that prevent the drawer from noisily hitting the body stand when it slams sharply. The system has two metal element: one is attached to the inner wall of the product, and the other is attached to the drawer. To separate these two parts, you need to use a clamp.
Ball guides are available in full or partial roll-out types. Full extension (or telescopic) guides allow the drawer to be pulled out beyond the boundaries of the furniture body, which maximizes visibility internal space. Partial extension guides leave a vast area of about 50 mm from the rear end of the drawer. The length of the guides ranges from 200 to 600 mm in increments of 50 mm. The maximum load of guides with a height of 35 mm is 30 kg. There are also reinforced guides, their height is 45 mm, and the maximum load is up to 45 kg.
Metaboxes
This is a type of roller guide. The steel runners of these guides are increased to the height of the drawer and completely replace its wooden side walls. Hence the name - metaboxes or metalboxes. The rollers are attached to the sides. The height of the side walls is from 54 mm to 150 mm. The height can be increased using special roof rails. The bottom of the metabox is made of chipboard, limiting the filling weight to 20 kg. The shorter the box, the greater the load permissible.
When attaching the facade to the metabox, vertical and horizontal adjustment is provided, which allows you to accurately align it with the body. Most often, metaboxes are used in the manufacture of serial kitchens in the budget category.
Tandems
Tandems - guides hidden installation. There are two types: full and partial extension. The box is mounted on such guides from above, completely hiding them under the sides and bottom.
Soft sliding (even with a load of up to 50 kg) is ensured by the bearing principle: a block of steel balls located on four sides of the runners (quad system), or cylinders - needles. The fastening allows you to adjust the position of the drawer relative to the body and remove the drawer from the guides without tools. Tandems are available in several versions:
- with a closer - normal opening by the handle and smooth closing;
- with tip on or push to open mechanism - opens by touching the front;
- with electromechanical opening.
Tandemboxes
Tandembox is a box consisting of metal sides with double walls, the bottom is usually made of chipboard, the back wall is made of metal or chipboard and hidden mounting guides. These are the same tandems, equipped with double side walls. It is possible to further increase the height of the drawer using rails and a special profile. Some manufacturers make extensions from glass strips.
To organize the internal space of the drawer, additional options are provided: mobile dividers, containers and stands for cutlery and spice jars.
Legrabox boxes
The most modern and expensive systems of guides for drawers, occupying a high position in the list of all furniture components. The reinforced design stably withstands loads of up to 60 kg. Matte coating of stainless steel emphasizes rigor and sophistication stylish design legrabox.
Installation of this type of system involves jeweler's precision drilling of facades and side walls, absolutely verified calculations in the manufacture of chipboard parts. It is also necessary to correctly and accurately mill the bottom.
Manufacturers furniture fittings They also offer other ways to use guides. For example, fastening retractable baskets, nets, containers for various purposes.
General guidelines for installing drawer slides
How to install everything correctly? Calculation of parts when installing guides for drawers can be made using the formulas that manufacturers provide for their products. Usually all necessary information also contained in the instructions.
The key to successful installation of drawer guides is accurate marking. All guides must be installed at the same level and strictly parallel to each other. It is most convenient to make markings before assembling the product on a flat horizontal surface with sufficient lighting.
There are two ways to install a drawer front: external and internal. With the external installation method, the facade covers the end of the body. Then the guide must be attached close to the outer end of the product stand. At internal way the end of the product stand is in the same plane as the facade. When attaching, the guide must be moved inward from the visible end to the thickness of the facade.
Installation instructions for roller guides for drawers
Now let's talk about installing the roller guides. When installing roller guides for drawers, the kit must be divided into right and left sides, and then into inner and outer parts. The left outer part has a U-shaped profile, the right outer part has a G-shaped profile, and the inner part has an L-shaped profile.
All parts of the guides have holes for their fixation and adjustment on the parts using self-tapping screws. Along the marking lines, the corresponding parts of the guides are screwed onto the racks of the product body. It is necessary to make sure that the rollers on them are closer to the front end of the part. L-shaped parts of the guides are attached to the already assembled box. In this case, the rollers should be located at the rear end of the box.
The product is assembled, drawers are inserted, fronts and handles are hung. The installation is completed.
Ball Guide Installation Instructions
When installing ball guides for drawers, you need to separate inner part guide from the outside. To do this you need to find inside guide the plastic tab and pull out the narrow part.
According to preliminary markings, it is necessary to screw the outer part of the guide to the rack, and the inner part to the side wall of the box. Assemble the product, insert drawers, hang facades. The installation for the drawers is complete.
What about drawers with closers? Installation of guides for drawers with closers is carried out in the same way. Everything is quite simple here. Installation of Boyard ball guides for drawers or systems from other manufacturers is carried out in the same way.
First, we’ll do a “fitting” - adjust their horizontalness and installation depth into the frame, then finally fix the guides on the drawers.
Installation and adjustment of drawers
One by one, we install all the previously assembled drawers into the wardrobe frame in the sequence described below.
1. Fully “pull out” the moving parts of the guides corresponding box, fixed to the walls of the frame.
2. Pull the bar with balls inside each guide “out” until it stops. Only with this position will the box fit correctly into its place.
The photo below shows the correct and incorrect positions of the strip with balls in the guide for installing a drawer.
3. Carefully insert the assembled box into the frame, combining the “halves” of ball guides mounted on the box with the mating parts of the guides mounted on the walls of the frame. We push the drawer all the way.
Here it is important to effortlessly and carefully move the drawer deeper into the cabinet, without paying attention to the order in which the moving parts of the guides will “move in.”
Ball guides for drawers are designed in such a way that if the parts of the disassembled guides on the drawers are correctly inserted into the mating parts of the guides on the walls of the frame, the guides will definitely “assemble” correctly.
When the drawer is almost in the retracted position, you will need to apply a little force to push it all the way. At this moment, both “halves” of each guide are fixed, and the guides are in the assembled state.
We install the remaining three boxes in the same way.
Checking the progress of the boxes. If our calculations were carried out correctly, the boxes will move freely.
Checking the horizontality of the boxes. If there is no or very slight deviation, there is no need to adjust the horizontal position; such deviations are compensated for when installing the drawer fronts.
If the deviation is large (one edge of the drawer is higher than the opposite by more than 1 mm), remove the corresponding drawer, loosen the screws in the “oval” holes of one of its guides, slightly move the guide up or down (to lower or raise the edge, respectively), eliminating deviation from horizontality.
Tighten the previously loosened screws. We insert the box into its place and again check that it is horizontal.
Adjustment of the sliding wardrobe drawers in depth, if necessary, can be done after installing the facades. In my case, depth adjustment was not required.
Now you can move on to probably the most important stage of installing drawers - fitting and installing facades.
The appearance of the wardrobe will largely depend on how carefully the installation of the facades is carried out.
Installation of drawer fronts
We will begin installing the fronts on the drawers by “trying them on” - from the very bottom drawer.
We take the front part and apply it to the front wall of the bottom drawer.
Assessing the size of the gaps between the facade and the walls on the right and left. For this purpose, I used two drills with the same diameter of 3 mm (see photo), placed under the facade on the right and left. Why are the drills 3 mm? Because this is exactly the gap I planned between the bottom shelf and the front of the bottom drawer.
The facade can be “rolled” on drills to the right and left, selecting the size of the corresponding side gaps. At the same time, the gap from below between the front and the bottom shelf remains unchanged, and it is completely visible - across the entire width of the drawer.
To be more confident, I also tried on the front of the second drawer from the bottom, simply placing it on building level, lying on the upper end of the front of the lower drawer. I also “drove” both facades on drills - I needed this to see how the side gaps would look from the outside. After all, the walls in our example are different, and the same gaps between the walls and the facade will look different (see photo).
As a result, I decided to make the gap on the left a little less than the calculated one - 1.5 mm instead of 2 mm. To install the side gap on the left I also used a 1.5 mm drill.
Thus, when installing the fronts of all drawers, I was guided by a gap on the left equal to 1.5 mm.
Once you have decided on the gaps, you can proceed directly to installing the fronts on the drawers.
To do this, we will use double-sided tape and 30 mm long screws.
Paste the tape one side on the front walls of the drawers. We do not remove the protective paper from the second adhesive layer of tape yet.
Once again we try on the front of the bottom drawer, taking into account the gaps on the right and left.
If everything is in order, remove the protective paper from the second adhesive layer of tape glued to the bottom drawer, carefully place the lower part of the facade on the drills 3 mm at an angle from the top of the drawer. And we begin to carefully turn the upper part of the facade towards the drawer, while keeping the lower part of the facade pressed against the drawer.
As the facade enters the opening, insert a 1.5 mm drill into the gap on the left and press it against it left side front of the drawer, carefully, without effort, press the facade against the front wall of the drawer with its entire plane.
Checking the horizontal installation of the facade. If the facade is installed strictly horizontally, and the gaps suit us, we press hard on the facade so that the adhesive tape sticks to it better.
If the facade is not installed horizontally, remove it and install it again. If necessary, we change the tape. We carry out this operation until the facade is horizontal with required clearances below and along the edges.
Then, carefully, without applying force to the currently only glued facade, we pull out the bottom drawer, and from the inside screw a pair of 30 mm long screws into the façade through the front wall, thus fixing the facade on the box (see photo).
We will screw in the remaining screws after installing the fronts of all the drawers.
Further measure the distance between the upper part of the front installed on the bottom drawer and the bottom plane of the shelf above the drawers. We need to ensure that the gaps between the facades and this shelf are the same (see photo).
From the resulting distance we subtract the height of the facades of the three remaining drawers, and divide the difference by 4 - according to the number of gaps.
In my case, the gaps turned out to be equal to 35 mm, that is, in full accordance with the calculations.
Starting from the second façade from the bottom and above, we will install the fronts of each drawer, placing them between the one being installed and the bottom established facade a gasket is a kind of template.
As such a gasket, I used 16 mm chipboard scraps with a corrugated cardboard gasket (3 mm) between them. The total was 35 mm (see photo, the corrugated cardboard is not visible there - it is laid between the laminated chipboard parts.
The installation procedure for each subsequent front is the same as for the bottom drawer. We just start by installing the facade on a template gasket 35 mm high, and not on drills.
After installing all the facades, we make sure that when closed the drawers are aligned vertically and horizontally.
We finally fix the facades- screw the remaining 30 mm screws into the fronts inside the drawers.
We finally attach the guides to the drawers. We screw 4x16 mm screws into the round holes in the “halves” of the guides installed on the drawers. It is better to remove the boxes before doing this.
We put the boxes in their places in the frame.
So, all the drawers are installed and aligned (see photo).
We close (seal) with plugs on self-adhesive paper the caps of the confirmats that are visible when the drawers are pulled out (see photo).
Let's move on to the details from the profile for sliding doors built-in wardrobe.
Home craftsmen often have to assemble furniture with their own hands. This happens both when purchasing ready-made interior items and when self-production cabinets, cabinets, tables and the like. Wherein correct fastening guides for a wide variety of drawers becomes a real stumbling block. Despite the apparent simplicity of this work, installation errors can lead to dire consequences. In progress further exploitation furniture may cause serious difficulties. Therefore, it is important to immediately determine the type of guides themselves and the method of their installation.
Types of guides
At the moment, there are 2 main types of guides that are installed on drawer. These are roller and ball systems. There are also other designs: hidden, with closers, telescopic, and so on. But they don’t install them with their own hands. This installation is carried out in a factory setting.
Roller guides usually consist of 2 strips with perforations for fasteners. Plastic wheels are attached to the ends of the structures. Thanks to them, the drawers slide out.
Figure 1. Types of guides.
Such systems have a number of significant disadvantages:
- When in use, the drawers make an unpleasant sound.
- The wheels are unreliable and quickly become unusable.
- If there is a strong pull, the box may fall out of its intended slot.
But such guides also have advantages. They are cheap and easy to install.
Ball systems are also called full extension guides. This is a telescopic design that allows you to extend the drawer the entire length of the bar. Inside the system there are metal balls that ensure smooth and almost silent movement.
The main difference between roller and ball systems is that the first one consists of 2 profiles independent from each other, and the second one is one-piece. In the first case, 1 strip is attached directly to the wall of the box, and the 2nd – to the furniture. The rollers are disassembled only during installation. And in assembled form look like a solid structure. It is this feature that ensures the reliability of the fastenings: the storage space does not fall out even with a strong tug. Appearance different guides are shown in Fig. 1.
At the moment you can find guides in stores different sizes. This allows you to select a ready-made design for interior items of any type and depth. As a rule, roller systems are placed on boxes that are not expected to bear heavy loads. They can be found in linen and clothing closets, kitchen modules (for example, for storing cutlery), and hallways. Ball structures are placed on linen drawers of beds and furniture intended for children's rooms.
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Installation of roller elements
Figure 2. Scheme of fastening roller guides.
Whatever type of drawer mounting you choose, you will need the following tools:
- drill with a thin wood drill bit;
- screwdriver with travel limiter;
- a set of screwdrivers with various blades (flat and Phillips).
Also, don't forget to have your measuring tools ready. You will need a tape measure or a long ruler and a square.
All necessary notes can be made with a simple pencil or colored chalk. The installation diagram of roller guides is shown in Fig. 2.
The process of installing guide systems on drawers occurs in 3 stages:
- Marking furniture walls and storage areas.
- Installing the bar on the drawer.
- Installing strips on furniture.
Figure 3. Diagram of the ball guides.
If you follow this sequence, you will be able to avoid possible mistakes.
The guide can be installed anywhere. But usually they are mounted strictly in the middle of the wall (this makes it easier to determine the location of the structure on the furniture) or flush with the top or bottom of the box. But roller systems are most often installed on the bottom edge.
It is wiser not only to mark the places for screwing in self-tapping screws, but also to drill them. This will ensure that the screw does not split the wood. You need to determine the location of the fasteners immediately both on the drawer and on the wall of the furniture.
The master should remember that the thickness of this type of guides is 1.25 cm. Accordingly, the width of the drawer should be 2.5 cm narrower than the internal width of the furniture (both sides are taken into account). Otherwise, the retractable structure will not fit into the housing. For freer movement, add 1-2 mm to this gap.
The length of the screws is selected based on the wall thickness.
The head of the fastener must firmly fix the guide, but not rise above the bar. In this case, the sting should not penetrate through the wall. First, the guides are fixed on the drawer, and then on the furniture. After which the storage system is placed in its designated place.
To pull out drawers in wardrobes, kitchen cabinets, chests of drawers and other types of furniture, so-called so-called drawer guides.
Roller guides
Roller guides The guides are the simplest in terms of design and installation; by the way, you can also find the following names for these guides, such as runners for drawers or runners. Their price is small, on average 50-100 rubles. for a couple. The roller guides look like the photo below, you've probably seen them more than once.
The roller guides are covered with durable epoxy enamel; guides are available in different colors, the most common guides being cream. You can find roller guides for drawers with a depth of 250 to 800 mm, that is, for almost all cases.
Roller guides can withstand dynamic loads of up to 25 kg; you are unlikely to store anything heavier in a chest of drawers or in a drawer in a closet. The disadvantages of roller guides are the noise with which they extend and close; the extension is partial. But low price eliminates these shortcomings.
According to the installation diagram, the gap between outer part the side wall of the box and the side of the product body should be 12.5 mm or 25 mm on both sides, usually 26 mm is taken in calculations. This means that the width of the box should be 25-26 mm less than the internal space of the cabinet.
Ball guides
Ball guides, or as they are called telescopic guides, are able to withstand heavy loads and have a smooth ride. The cost of guides is from 300-400 rubles. for a couple. There are options with and without closers.
Ball guides, like roller guides, consist of two parts. One of them is attached to the box, the other to the side wall.
In order to separate them, you need to press the latch, as shown in the photo. This is such a little black lever.
It is possible, of course, to install without disconnecting, but this torture is even worse, I had a chance to try it from my own experience. As a result, a negative idea may be formed about ball guides and the complexity of their installation. It's actually simple.
Installation of ball guides by elements is carried out on the side walls of the cabinet and the sidewalls of the drawer.
The most commonly used are ball guides with a height of 45 mm, the size range of guides is from 250 to 700 mm, and can withstand loads of up to 36 kg, which is more than.
The calculation of a box on ball guides is similar to the calculation of roller guides; the width dimensions of the box are determined as the size of the internal space minus 26 mm (12.7 mm + 12.7 mm).
But this scheme does not work for all cases, it all depends on the type of ball guides, you can read about this in a separate article.
Metaboxes
Metaboxes is a pull-out system based on roller guides. The material of the metaboxes is 1.2 mm thick steel, coated with high-strength enamel. Price from 300-400 rub. per pair, produced by "Blum" in the region of 600-700 rubles.
Tandems
Tandem hidden guide technology ensures smooth movement even for heavily loaded drawers. The drawer can be easily removed from the guides without tools.
Tandem- this is a smooth move and full or partial extension. Drawers can be either with or without a built-in closer. The tandem can be equipped with Tip-on (opening system by pressing the facade). The cost of guides is 1000 -1500 rubles. for a couple.
On the Tandem drawer guides you can make a drawer under the sink. Since the sink has a convex part, which is located inside the body, the standard, that is, straight drawer design is not suitable here. The convex part or bottom of the sink will prevent the drawer from closing. In this case, the bottom of the box is made with a cutout, and the walls of the box made of chipboard are attached along the cutout. This entire structure is installed on Tandem guides.
Application Tandem guides assumes the use of 16 mm thick chipboard, although solutions using 18 mm thick chipboard are possible.
The most expensive segment of the drawer slide market. The sides of the box (drawer side) are made of thin-walled steel, unlike tandems, where the box body is made of chipboard.
The kit includes fastenings to the front and fastenings to the back wall of the drawer. Detailing includes a chipboard bottom and back wall, similar to a metabox. The guides are similar to tandems, have a smooth closing, with closers.
Tandemboxes can be equipped with an opening system that does not require installing a handle on the facade; it is enough to simply press the facade with your hand.
Tandemboxes of various heights and variety of assortment significantly exceed metaboxes. Let's look at an example tandemboxes Blum.
Height N, drawer drawer height 68 mm, lowest drawer
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Height M, drawer drawer height 83 mm
Height C, drawer drawer height 115 mm
Is used for high facades, the back wall is enlarged, a railing is also added. The minimum height of the internal space for a drawer is 191 mm.
Height also D, drawer drawer height 83 mm
Used for high fronts, the back wall is also enlarged, but instead of two railings, the Railing with Boxside is an overlay on the drawer side. The minimum height of the internal space for a drawer is 224 mm. The solution is mainly for kitchen drawers, not for wardrobes.
Two triple tubular holders and railing tubes allow you to make a special box on tandembox guides in a sink cabinet. Thanks to the cutout in the bottom, the drawer allows you to bypass the sink protruding into the body of the cabinet.
Another interesting solution from Blum is the use of tandembox guides for a corner cabinet, which is called Space Corner.
The fittings set includes a number of specific elements that are not found in other guides and, frankly speaking, this fittings are not cheap. Space corner allows you to effectively use corner space in the kitchen, and the use of ORGA line dividers further structures the storage space.
At the beginning Legrabox boxes positioned as elite products that were inaccessible to mere mortal furniture makers. The point here was not at all in the price, and the price, by the way, is the highest in comparison with other extension systems, but in the complexity and accuracy of manufacturing the remaining parts from chipboard, the accuracy of milling the bottom of the drawer, the accuracy of drilling the side walls of the case and facades. Therefore, Legrabox boxes were offered furniture companies who produce high-end furniture.
Installation, calculation and installation of guides for drawers
It’s not enough to know what drawer guides there are, but the question arises: how to calculate and install guides.
There are a large number of methods and approaches to calculating and installing guides on the Internet. I use a simple program from Blum called DYNALOG with a clear interface; for design we use the DYNAPLAN module.
Special furniture programs are expensive, there is no point in mastering them, much less buying them, if you want to make products for your home yourself.
As an example of a basic product, I will give a cabinet 616 mm high, 600 mm wide, 500 mm deep with overhead facades 200 mm high, chipboard drawers 150 mm high, gaps between the facades 4 mm.
If we want to calculate the installation of drawers in a sliding wardrobe, then keep in mind that with a cabinet depth of 600 mm and internal partition 500 mm, the calculation is carried out for inset facades, the facades will be inside between the side wall and the partition, as well as between the horizontal walls. It is better to make side gaps of 4 mm in the version of inset facades.
If you have any difficulties installing the fronts on the drawers, then use the instructions below:
- Assemble the box frame
- Screw the guides to the sides of the chest and drawer frame
- We drive all the collected boxes inside IMPORTANT: WE DO NOT PLACE FACADES!
- By using double sided tape We align the facades with the walls, taking into account the gaps. In this case, the drawer is in the chest of drawers, and there is no need to remove it!
If the front part is level, the drawers do not cling to each other, and all gaps are observed, then we begin to secure the front to the box body. To do this, take out one drawer at a time and place it on the back panel with the front facing you. After this, use a 5mm drill to drill through the body of the drawer through the hole on the front part and pull the front from the inside through the handles.
Please note that the tape serves only to align the facades with the walls, taking into account the gaps; the facades are secured with screws through the handles!
Important: When installing the boxes, each of them must be returned to its place in the same sequence in which they were in point (3). It is very important not to disturb this order, since when changing the positions of the drawers (the top drawer is placed down and vice versa), a problem will arise with the fact that they will not fit into place.
If you still have questions about the assembly, then write to us at email, and we will help you sort out all the points that are unclear to you.
