Drawer Runner advice needed, please.

[Smudger]

Mrs Smudger keeps large quantities of heavy things in kitchen units in her workshop. As a result, one of the cheapo MFI (20 years ago) drawers has fallen out. I have been tasked with replacing it, and to do so I have bought some cheapo drawer runners from Screwfix.

I've never done this before, but I have a need to do it again in the future, and I know that some of you blokes do this all the time.

What I need to know is what allowance I make for the width of the runners when making the drawer - ie how much narrower than the carcase must the drawer be? I know I could just measure the width of the runners, but I'm not sure of what the tolerances are.

 

[Chems]

If you go on the wood whisper site, he has a video about a assembly table and he talks for a few mins about doing these types of runners on drawers an I've gotta say it was really good and I'm not normally a fan.

 

[Smudger]

Cheers for that. I'll have a look.

 

[WellsWood]

It's pretty much always 1/2" per runner Dick. i.e. subtract 1" from your internal carcase dimension and you'll be on the money. It's not the end of the world if the drawer is a alittle on the small side - you can always shim the runner off the carcase wall - but if it's too tight you're in trouble (it depends what the drawer side is made of, you could plane a bit off but overlay drawer fronts make this very difficult)

 

[jasonB]

Thats it 25mm overall, they do have a bit of allowance, look closely and the right carcase part has a "U" for the wheel to run in but the left is just a flat surface so don't go too small.

Jason

 

[xy mosian]

In the ones I have used the width is not terribly critical. This is because one of the runners has a 'hook' which allows negligible sideways movement while the other allows some float. Without measuring, and from memory, I would say Wells Wood has it right.

Stack the runners together and measure the combined thickness. A tape will do it with sufficient accuracy, remember a little slack is better than too tight. (In this case anyway).

HTH

xy