Need a drawer slide for a 5' +/- drawer!!!

The drawer won’t rack if you glue and nail the bottom –
I’d use 1/2” or 3/4” for the bottom.

The slides may rack however if you don’t carefully pull out
the drawer using 2 handles and if you have young children,
I guarantee you’ll have problems. 1) they will not pull
the drawer out carefully and 2) they will stand on it.

Another way to do it is make the wide front a drop-front
panel with hinges on the bottom and a catch or spring
to hold it closes and put 2 frontless drawers inside.

I make my drawers out of 1/2” birch and my bottoms out of 1/4” pine that’s dado’s into the sides. The entertainment center is made out if American Elm and the drawer front I have glued up is bowed a little now and would rather stick to one large drawer.

http://woodworker.com/

Is there something in particular I’m supposed to be looking for on that website?

Suit y’self.

or you could change the design to two draws.

-- Fred, Springfield, Ma

I think Loren gives good advice with using a 1/2” bottom. We are currently doing a large closet area which will have large 40” wide drawers. I expect some racking but do not think it will be that bad. Like already mentioned, the drawer of that width will need to be pulled out with two hands and care will be required when using the drawers. I did reinforce our larger drawers with 1/2” baltic underneath the drawer. Also placing small triangle ply brackets on the top side of the drawer should further strengthen the drawer.

-- Jerry Nettrour, San Antonio, www.topqualitycabinets.net

Blum motion/tandem would be first choice, they also come in a “heavy duty”

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

the unit is for a lat screen TV, so I assume the piece wont be much deeper then 16”, there for the drawer will be between 12 and 14” deep. Taking the front and back of the drawer leaves a span of approx., 12 to 14”, so I would not be concerned about using 1/4” plywood

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

There’s a good reason to go with 1/2” for a bottom in this sort
of drawer.

1. You can rabbet the bottom of the bottom and then glue it
in with the mechanical advantage of the rabbet. A 1/4” bottom
glues into 1/4” grooves can still break loose and rack. A 1/2”
bottom with a rabbet with the shoulder of the rabbet jamming
up flush with the drawer sides won’t rack.

2. You can shoot nails into the drawer sides with a 1/2” bottom
to hold the bottom firm and tight. Nailing into the edge of
a 1/4” ply is just not happening for 2 reasons: 1, it’s too thin
and 2, the core is usually junk with thin veneers on it and
small voids in the middle.

Ive done drawers lots of ways but in this case I would probably
groove the front and sides with 1/4” grooves or maybe 1/2”
rabbets, glue and nail the bottom in and and make the back of
the drawer short and nail it on through the bottom to keep it
straight, leaving the bottom sticking out proud of the back a
little maybe for a little boost in strength to hold the nails.

Ooooookey dokey

me bad, I forgot that loren has many many decades more experience then I

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

Sarcasm wasn’t called for, dude.

After doing searching for most of the day I have discovered a ‘rack and pinion’ slide system that actually connects both sides of the drawer together and can accommodate a drawer up to 60 1/2” wide and a 200lb load rating. It also allows you to pull on the far side or center of the drawer to open it and i do have a 3yr old as well as a wife who have put all my woodworking to the extreme test. Being that the hardware is 1” wide on each side and my opening is 63” that should work out greatly. Also I’m not interested in making it into 2 drawers as that would have taken away from the look I’m wanting in the end. And I have made all my drawers I have ever made out of 1/2” birch and 1/4” bottoms and the bottom panel is never even glued in but has a very tight fit. I shall try my trusted method with this drawer and see. In the end 1/4” pine going into grooves on all 4 sides will have hardly and flex in a drawer that’s only going to be about 14” deep and support about 20lbs max. Thanks

http://www.schockmetal.com/slide.php?slide_name=Rack+and+Pinion+Drawer+System

Gotta love Google…

I found some 36” deep 100 lb drawer slides on Amazon that I used for a 50” wide drawer on a platform bed. It works great and has no binding at all.

-- The smell of wood, coffee in the cup, the wife let's me do my thing, the lake is peaceful.