SisInLaw is getting a few years on her, and doesn’t bend as well as she used to. She has a base cabinet that holds lots of kitchen crapola, mostly light stuff. problem is that it’s a peninsula cabinet, and the top overhangs almost a foot, so access is difficult. I am thinking of converting it to pull out drawers rather than the existing door setup.
Here’s the Q: to help clear the overhang, i am thinking about building the drawers so they extend way out past the face frame. The house dates to the early 60’s so the cabinets are site-built plywood. My thought is to double stack a set of full-extension ball bearing slides, separated by a piece of 3/4 ply. The drawer will be almost 3″ narrow than normal, but I’m thinking it will pull out enough to make it convenient for her, and the convenience will outweigh the narrower drawer.
Will this work?
“Put your creed in your deed.” Emerson
“When asked if you can do something, tell’em “Why certainly I can”, then get busy and find a way to do it.” T. Roosevelt
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When I had the cabinetmaker convert my doors to drawers with a full ball bearing extension, I didn't lose any space on the sides. I did have him make new boxes and we slapped new faces on those. And I did pay up for the fancy heavy duty slides.
But as a concept, this makes wonderful sense. I figger I gained 50% in storage space by having 3 drawers instead of two shelves. Maybe more, because things can be organized so much more efficiently.
Do some checking on the slides.
There are some that are tripple track. IIRC they don't extend that far, but more than the 100% of full extenstion. I am thinking maybe 120%.
But that should still put stuff alot more accessable and it will be stronger, cheaper, and give more usable width.
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Have you considered installing drawers inside the cabinets? There are several off-the-shelf systems for this, some with pre-built drawers and some where you buy the slides and support brackets and craft your own drawers.
We installed interior drawers when we had our cabinets refaced. In a couple of cases the installer removed the central mullion to allow full-width drawers.
also consider swing out boxes on hinges
Never done it but seems like it would work. I think I would go with 22" slides as the primary then 12 or 14" for the secondary. And I would be inclined to fill every screw hole where the primary attached to the cabinet box.
I'd also mock it up first before I went crazy building drawer boxes.
I have thought that maybe the double slides would be a little floppy. so I'm considering building a SHALLOW SUB-DRAWER THAT RIDES ON THE SLIDES ATTACHED TO THE FACE FRAME, AND THEN THE REAL DRAWER SITS Inside the sub drawer. Sorry, caps lock on, head down, I'm not re-typing. Anyway, sub-drawer would have sides about 3" high amd a 1/4" bottom to keep the sides aligned."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
that would help the alignment issues keeping things parallel.TFB (Bill)
Decent quality, full extension (or overtravel) glides aren't floppy and will carry about anything you would put in a drawer. The trick is making solid drawer boxes and mounting everything correctly.When I'm dealing with older customers for their cabinets, I strongly recommend that they use the fewest possible door and shelf base cabinets. Yes, drawer units cost more, but not having to crawl on the floor to find stuff makes the extra cost worth it. So far, they've all agreed. - lol
I understand the concept, but not the details you put into words.
There is a company called Revit ( I think) that has a lot of ingenious kitchen cab slides and pullouts available. Try googling their catalouge up.
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Ok, firstr attempt at a skechup drawing. Green is the cabinet sides, blue is the new drawer, red is the intermediate plywood that connects the two sets of slides.
"Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
check out Rockler.com or catalog for starters and all kinds of related hardware, even (gasp) some of the advertisers in FHB...lots of good links and ideas
I'm not flippin' you off.........just counting cubits
I left the doors on in my mother in law's house, just took out the shelves, shimmed the sides for drawer slides and installed drawers. Cabinets still look the same :)
In the double-wide cabinet, I glued a strip to the back of one door so they still "looked the same" when closed and made wide drawers. The old gal is much happier with that arrangement.
Another idea?
I did something similar, though it was for a computer printer.
I used two sets of slides. The first pair was mounted in the standard way to a pull out shelf. They were standard KV 100% extension slides, I think 8400's. That shelf had to be 1" narrower than the carcass for the 1/2" clearance slide clearance needed on each side.
On top of that shelf I put another shelf, the "upper" shelf. The upper was mounted to the lower shelf with undermount drawer slides sandwiched between the two shelfs.
You pull out the upper shelf and it extends on the undermount slides, when full extention is reached then the side mouted slides extend.
Pretty stable, it's holding an $850 printer.
You could do the same thing, just make the upper shelf a drawer. This way the drawer can be the full width (less clearance) of the cabinet carcass, you don't have to lose the 1" for slide clearance.
Me likey
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
I know you feel that way about me, but what about my idea?
mumble grumble mong go bongoes;)
Welcome to the Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime. where ... Excellence is its own reward!
The concept is good, but I see one problem.
The inner slides are going to see a lot more load, due to the extra leverage. You might want to use the ultra high load slides there.