Drawer Box and Drawer Guide Sizing Blum Tandem

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Nancy Hiller is a weekly contributor to the Shop Blog. Look for her articles every Mon morning and exist sure to check out her volume,Making Things Piece of work.

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The drawers in this bar are fitted on Blum Tandem slides.

And then you lot've decided to mount the drawers for your project on Blum Tandem slides. What practise you lot need to know earlier you first cutting out drawer parts?

i. Choose your slide model and length

Note: The following instructions are for Blum Tandem 563 slides. The drawer width requirements are slightly different from those for model 569.

The slides come in 3″ increments, starting at nine″ and running upwards to 30″, but the about ordinarily used length is 21″, considering it's the size that works with standard 24″-deep base cabinets. Why non use a 24″ long slide? A standard 24″ deep cabinet won't adapt it. The slide lengths are nominal, non actual; they refer to the depth of the drawer yous'll build, not the length of the slide. The slides themselves are a footling longer than their nominal size, to accommodate the adjustment features.

A few weeks ago, I shared how to install Blum Tandem Slides with 2 jigs in a web log post. One time you have the slides in place, hither'south what comes side by side.

2. Make up one's mind the thickness of your drawer box parts

The thickness of your drawer parts will touch the length of the drawer's front and back, so it's a skilful idea to decide this element early. My preferred thickness for virtually applications is 1/2″, because it looks finer than, say 5/8″ or 3/iv″. That said, if you're starting with 4/four stock and are just going to exist turning the unneeded thickness into chips, you lot may prefer to keep your parts thicker to relieve material and time. For this exercise, I'll utilise 1/2″ as the thickness.

3.Determine the other dimensions of your drawer parts

Recollect from my last mail that if you're using Blum Tandem slides, yous'll need to use a face to the drawer front to conceal the spaces around the drawer box. The face can be inset, half- or total-overlay. In this post, I'll stick to the drawer box, split up from the face.

You need to consider 3 primary dimensions in determining the size of your drawer: width, depth (front end to back; in this case, the depth of the drawer corresponds to the length of the slide), and height.

A. Drawer depth from front to back (i.east., length of sides)

For this exercise, we're going with a standard 21″ (nominal) drawer slide. Because I'one thousand going to build the drawer with through dovetails, my sides will be the full (nominal) length of the drawer slide: 21″.

This drawer is fabricated with through dovetails.

The same would utilise if I were putting the drawer together with biscuits; the sides would need to come up all the manner to the front of the drawer box, with the front and back fitting between them, for maximum forcefulness (i.eastward., to resist coming apart under the tension of being pulled forward).

The crude pointer points to the back of the drawer, where the tilt adjustment mechanism fits into a pigsty in the drawer's dorsum.

If you plan to apply blind dovetails such every bit those produced past many router jigs, you lot will need to subtract the amount of wood left at the front and dorsum from the overall length of the slide to determine your drawer sides' length.

B. Top

Because the runners are designed to sit betwixt the drawer sides and are 1/ii″ loftier, the superlative of your drawer will need to factor in this 1/ii″ below the drawer bottom plus the thickness of the bottom, plus however much vertical clearance you need for the contents you plan to store in the drawer. Let'south say you're building a drawer for a food processor, a blender, and a few other modest kitchen appliances. The first question: Can you have the appliance apart to reduce the superlative you'll require?

This food processor and blender only need x″ in top for storage when the parts are disassembled.

Now add your net elevation requirement + drawer bottom thickness + i/2″ required past the slides to become the net vertical dimension. *Note that the drawer sides don't have to come upward to the pinnacle of the contents. For many applications, it's more user-friendly to have lower drawer sides, every bit they make moving bulky objects in and out of a drawer easier. For appliance drawers, I often make the sides, front, and dorsum just high enough to keep the contents from sliding out — so, in this case, 4″. Merely the net vertical dimension is all the same determined by the height required by thecontents.

This large drawer for storage containers has relatively high sides, to continue the containers and their lids from falling over the edges. A similar drawer for large items such as appliances or pots and pans could be made with lower sides.

You'll need at least 9/16″ below the drawer sides and one/4″ above them, i.due east. a total of xiii/sixteen″ in additional height, to determine your minimum vertical opening.

Let's say I'g going to use a 1/ii″ thick lesser for this drawer because these appliances and the others I'm going to store in it are relatively heavy. This means I need:

x″ + 1/2″ (drawer bottom thickness) + 1/two″ (slide requirement) = my internet vertical dimension, i.e. 11″

Now I'll add the thirteen/xvi″ of space for clearance below and higher up to yield the minimum vertical opening: 11 xiii/16″.

If I'm putting this drawer at the lesser of a three-drawer stack in a chiffonier with a traditional face up frame and drawer runway, this means the altitude between the bottom cabinet rail (i.e., the elevation border of the lesser face frame fellow member) and the first drawer rail (i.e., the lower edge of the bottom-most drawer rail) must be at least eleven-13/sixteen″. Of course, I tin can make this distance larger if I accept space and aesthetics demand it,but I cannot make information technology smaller.

You need to go through the calculations above to lay out the vertical components of your cabinet (unless you only desire to space your drawers based on how the faces volition expect, rather than trying to programme for particular objects that need to exist stored). Once you've done that, if you make up one's mind information technology would be almost convenient for your drawer box to be just 4″ high (even though the infinite it will fit into volition be at least 11-13/16″ high), go for it. That's the dimension I'm going to utilize here.

So now we know that our sides will be 4″ 10 21″.

C. Width

The width of your drawer box'south front and back will be adamant by (a) the blazon of joinery you program to employ, (b) the thickness of your drawer parts, and (c) the width of the opening.

For example, if you're making your drawer with biscuits, the front and back will fit between the sides. If you lot're making your drawer with dovetails, the front and back will run the full width of the drawer.

The width of the opening is the width between the cabinet sides, or, if you lot're using a face frame, between the face frame stiles. *Annotation: If your face frame stiles protrude into the carcase, you will either need to shim out the sides by the amount of that protrusion so that the drawer slides volition sit affluent with the inside edge of the face up frame (as in my last mail service) or you volition need to use a rear mounting bracket.

Aye, this is the same image as the terminal ane. Here I'one thousand using it to testify what's meant by the "opening width" — i.eastward., the width between the face frame stiles. Because of the way Blum Tandem slides are engineered, at that place will be a little gap between the outside of the drawer (at left and correct) and the edges of the confront frame.

Rear mounting brackets (the 50-shaped parts at bottom right) allow for installation in cabinets with face frame stiles that protrude into the carcass. In this case, the drawer slide is screwed to the cabinet at the forepart, then slotted into the rear mounting bracket which is screwed to the back of the chiffonier.

What matters ultimately in determining the width of your drawer box is, to quote the Blum installation instructions:

"Within drawer width must equal opening width minus 42 mm (i-21/32″) for TANDEM to align and function optimally."

If you lot're using biscuit joinery, this makes it like shooting fish in a barrel to figure how long the front and back need to exist, because the length of the front and back is precisely equal to the "inside drawer width." Say your drawer opening (the opening betwixt the face frame stiles) is 15″. Your "inside drawer width" will be

Drawer opening of 15″ – 1-21-32″ = 13-11/32″.

If y'all're using dovetails, the calculation takes an additional step:

Drawer opening of 15″ – one-21/32″ = the within drawer width of thirteen-11/32″, as in a higher place. At present you lot need to add together the length for the pins, which will exist the aforementioned as your drawer sides' thickness. And so if the sides are 1/2″ thick, the whole adding will exist:

Drawer opening of xv″ – i-21/32″ + (2 ten 1/2″) = 14-xi/32″. Because 21/32″ is simply a hair over 5/viii″, and because, as I mentioned above, I'k using drawer sides that are 1/2″ thick, I can take a shortcut and simply subtract v/eight″ from the opening width in calculating how long my drawer box forepart and back should be.

So here'south my finished cutting list, based on ane/2″ thick stock for a drawer box 4″ high made with through dovetails:

Sides: 2 @ one/ii″ ten 4″ x 21″

Front end and back: 2 @ i/2″ 10 4″ x 14-3/viii″.

I volition cut my parts to length and do the joinery with the back at the same width equally the front, then rip it to fit over the drawer lesser after I've cutting the grooves in the front and sides.

The Blum Media Center at blum.com has installation guides for all hardware. Look for "runners" then go to the Blum Tandem sections. https://www.blum.com/u.s.a./en/02/90/ Always make sure that you're following the instructions for the specific model y'all are using.

– Nancy Hiller

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Source: https://www.popularwoodworking.com/woodworking-blogs/sizing-parts-for-drawers-on-blum-tandem-slides/

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