All Replies on Blumotion slides help

21 ” slides are usually meant for lower cabinets, which are ~ 24” deep.

-- there's a solution to every problem.......you just have to be willing to find it.

Yes, these are going in my lowers. But you didn’t answer my questions.

the little prongs are what hold the back of the drawer from tipping up, if the slides didn’t come with instructions try the blum site, there is a jig they make for installing these but is very expensive but if you take your time, maybe make a sample drawer you can do it

Ben,

Blum recommends the drawer box be 21” and yes the tabs are suppose to fit in a hole in the back of the drawer box. All that being said, I’m not sure how well they would hold up over a period of time if you shortened the box and relied strictly on the front locking devices to hold the drawer box to the slides.

I think you’re trying to get the drawer slide to do something it wasn’t designed to do. You may want to use the KV8405 22” side mount full extension slides which has the 1” override to give you that extra extension you’re looking for.

-- John @ http://www.thehuffordfurnituregroup.com

Thanks huff.

No, it’s OK. too late at this point to swap slides. I’ll just do the 21” box and it will be fine.

I guess I’ll slide my first box up against the prongs and use that to layout the holes. Is just a round hole for that thing, or a special slot?

On Blum’s site they have an arrow pointing to the prong, and another picture showing the jig, but that’s about it.

Ben,

Regular drill bit, but I can’t remember the size for the hole at the moment, but will check tomorrow when I go out to the shop. Set-up a drill stop so you don’t drill completely through the back of your drawer box. That doesn’t hurt anything if you do, but you don’t have to have the hole all the way thru, just enough for the tab to fit.

-- John @ http://www.thehuffordfurnituregroup.com

Motion guides are not sold in imperial measurements…….. 300, 350……..500 550, 600…etc. It is a european system and the length of the drawer side is determined by the length of the guide, the drawer front mounting method, being an additional drawer front or where the drawer front of the actual drawer is exposed. All considered you should first read the instructions before asking questions to those who haven’t a clue what they are speaking of ?

the combinations and permutations of how to install these guides and what can go wrong is virtually endless

see if you can get your money back and buy a “simple” easier high end guide

-- "Good artists borrow, great artists steal”…..Picasso

I have the jig and it is well worth it. Makes the the installation quick and easy for the locking device and the rear hole for the slide. The holes for the locking device need to be drilled at an angle so the jig makes this easy.

-- Gary; Marysville, MI...Involve your children in your projects as much as possible, the return is priceless.

OMG

the jig does it all ?

who’ld a thunk ?

albeit I agree the jig, in the right hands, saves a lot of time, but its still the mind that cuts the parts out the right size and machines them correctly, and then sets the jigs

GaryL………….look at your jig and the hole and tell me the hole isnt square to the cabinet or the drawer ? unless we are speaking of the “clips” in which case they are drilled into the drawer bottom and or front in which case the drawer front is ? exposed, flush, over laid ?…..so on and so forth. Regardless, I cannot imagine being unable to secure clip to bottom of drawer ?

over and out

-- "Good artists borrow, great artists steal”…..Picasso

The “clips” aka “locking devices” (I know, strange name) front holes, the ones that go into the drawer box front, not bottom, are angled slightly.
And yes, the jig has nothing to do with the drawer box constuction. It registers against the box for the locations of pilot holes and rear hole. The notch needs to be cut in by the fabricator. Lately I have been cutting the hole bottom off the back drawer piece and gluing and stapling the drawer bottom to the back. This is with Ultraply drawer bottoms, so not so much to worry about movement.

-- Gary; Marysville, MI...Involve your children in your projects as much as possible, the return is priceless.

if you make the drawer bigger than 21 than you can move the release tabs back from the front. Keeping the back setup the same.

ducky911,

That’s true, but then you have to move the slides back further inside the cabinet or the drawer box would stick out the front of the cabinet. You could pick up the thickness of the faceframe since he’s doing an inset drawer front, but anything more than that wouldn’t gain you anything. Another words, he could make the drawer box 21 3/4” instead of the 21 recommended. The travel length of the slide is still the same.

-- John @ http://www.thehuffordfurnituregroup.com

Ben,

The drill bit for drilling the holes in the back of the drawer box for the tab on the slides is 6mm. 17/64” is what I use since I don’t have a 6mm bit. Sorry, forgot to get that when I went to the shop this morning.

-- John @ http://www.thehuffordfurnituregroup.com

You are correct in saying that the drawer should be shorter than the slide to give the illusion of a full extension when the drawer is fully opened. As the prong fits into the back of the drawer, you would need to add a packing piece to the back of the drawer and insert the prongs into that to achieve the effect you want. I wouldn’t do it though as I value the extra depth more than trying to have the back edge of the drawer lining up with the face frame.

-- Do or do not, there is no try

Huff,

You must think I am some kind of a nut!

the drawer can not stick out of the front of the cabinet…that would be nuts.

I have here in front of me four drawers 17” deep with 15” blummotions on them….they do NOt stick out the front of the cabinet…..I moved the front release clips back from the front of the drawer about 2”

Ducky…But you are losing the full extension (of the drawer box) by 2”. I think that is what Huff was getting at.

-- Gary; Marysville, MI...Involve your children in your projects as much as possible, the return is priceless.

As long as what the rear prongs stick into are NEAR 21” you can modify boxes many ways and use these guides. I routinely modify my trash pullouts so they can have 596 (23.5”) sides and fit on 550 (21)” guides. And many other ways, for cutting boards, printer and keyboard pull outs, etc. etc.

Moron fortunately blum built the margin of error large enough so that us ‘mericans don’t have to convert things. And with respect for the empire, converted every thing in there instructions in advance. Nice guys those europeen’s.

OP ben, just get ready for the technology treadmill. Not long and you will be installing the electrically actuated, touch to open, soft close, silent, automatic, fully concealed, under mount, line.

-- Who is John Galt?

ducky911,

I don’t think your nuts at all and sorry if I came across that way. I was just trying to figure what the advantage is of putting a bigger drawer on a shorter slide. If it’s indexed from the rear, then you have to move the slide farther back into the case and when fully extended, you just end up with more drawer inside the cabinet. More like a 3/4 extension slide. Am I missing something or is there an advantage of doing that.

I’m alway open for new and better ideas.

Thanks

-- John @ http://www.thehuffordfurnituregroup.com

Maybe this might help. I do this with my trash pullout for this reason. The most popular cans need more that 21” Just 21.5. I could just use a 24” guide, but it does not fit in a 23 3/4 box, the most efficient by yield. With side mounts we use 22” and get full extension. So with under mount we modify the box. still get enough extension, and use the guide that fits.

-- Who is John Galt?

Thanks Joey, that part makes sense and I take it that it doesn’t effect getting the trash cans in or out by backsetting the slide since it’s only a 1/2” or so. I guess I got hung up on putting like a 21” drawer box on a 18” slide; what the advantage would be there.

Ben,

Sorry we hijacked your thread, but I’m sure you’re also interested in any and all options when using the blum slides. I know it’s a good learning experience for me anyway. I’ve used hundreds of those slides, just never had to modify the appllication, but you never know when the time will arise.

Thanks everyone.

-- John @ http://www.thehuffordfurnituregroup.com

No prob. I’ll give another. A 21” cutting board drawer on an 18” guide would have a full extension, and also “hide” the guide in open position, helping to keep food out of the guide. etc. etc. The worst for me was the opposite. I did not research and found out the hard way that the 10” guides are 1” 1/4” longer, while the others are only 5/8” longer. I spotted after tooo much labor investment. Fortunately it was part of an island panel system. So careful cuts allowed me to cut the back and let the back end of the guide “poke” out the back of the cabinet. So I dodged the bullet, 10” deep d/bx, 11”deep cab, 11 1/4” guide. :0

-- Who is John Galt?

Guys, many thanks for all the feedback here.
I’ve built and installed two drawers now using the slides and have to say they were pretty butt simple to install once I got the dimensions for everything.

Attaching a pic: boxes are 5/8” maple with cherry fronts and 1/2” plywood bottoms.

I’m hand cutting the dovetails and these are the first I’ve ever cut in my life. The first box (background) was definitely a bit sloppy. Second was much tighter, but still a few little things. The second one also took a fraction of the time to build.
Maybe 2 hours?

Thanks.

looks great

-- Who is John Galt?

while i have this thread going:

will the blum tandem undermounts work on a very tall pullout box for cookie sheets, about 21” tall X 6” wide?
don’t want to use side mounts because it’s already so narrow. so it’s either this or just a regular hinged door, but i have no partition in the cabinet so i’d rather use undermounts.

thanks.

In pull outs that thin on undermounts, i have found they are really “tippy” I make the box 22”, and use a set of glides to stabilize. IMO it is better to use the heavy duty versions that hold up to 150 pounds. I can get you a drawing if you are interested. It is hard to explain in writing.

-- Who is John Galt?

thanks joey.
yes please on the drawing.

i’d make it just a door but i didn’t build the cabinet with this in mind, so there is no partition between that cavity and the slides for the drawers to the right. it’s possible to retrofit, though, so maybe a door makes more sense.