How to Choose the Right Drawer Slide for Your Furniture?

When looking to buy door and cabinet hardware and accessories, you need to at least have an idea of what to look for before going into the market. Considering that you will be expecting all your fit-ins in your house to serve you for a long period of time, knowing what to look for is vital. It means that you will be saving yourself from the headache that comes with the hardware getting damaged. You do not have to be a woodwork expert to know what to look for. If you have just moved into a new house, some of the things you will need to install or rather replace include things like; dresser drawer locks, drawer slides, file cabinet inserts and heavy duty adjustable shelves. Some of these hardware and accessories require professional skills for you to install them successfully. The best approach is to find a good woodwork technician who can carry out the installation successfully. However, there are among these things that you can install yourself but make sure that you know how to choose just the right choices. Take for example choosing the right soft close drawer hardware, if you are unaware of how to successfully choose the right drawer slide, then you will have some serious challenges buying soft close drawer hardware. Below are a few tips on how to choose the right soft close drawer hardware for your house.

Consider the Lengths and Extensions
One of the things you should give priority to when in the market for soft close drawer hardware is the total length of the slides that ranges from as low as 10 inches to 60 inches. The distance that the slide move is referred to as the ‘travel’. The simplest slide provides partial travel as only has two members-the inner and the outer member. Most simple slides are often found in residential places especially for kitchen cabinets or for simple office furniture. There is another form of cabinet that features three members that include two moving components and another intermediate piece. This type has the ability to extend to full length of the drawer slide and even at time beyond that. The slides that surpass the entire length of the drawer slide are referred to as ‘over travel’ as they go beyond the 100% distance that is available. Over travel slides are common in drawers that house kitchen utensils or those that are used as point of sales trays. You need to ensure that when searching for the right soft close drawer hardware, there is adequate drawer access that would be required depending on the length of the drawer slide. This access is in the form of the space that requires the drawer to go beyond the cabinet’s front face.

Disconnect or Non-disconnect Drawers
If you are in the market for the right soft close drawer hardware, consider whether you want a drawer that has a removable cabinet structure. If you decide to go with this option, then your drawer slides should have a disconnect feature. A disconnect feature enables you to separate from the cabinet the drawer member. Manufacturers with multiple assembly line are the ones most likely to benefit from the disconnect feature. One of the lines can concentrate in the assembly of hardware to drawers while the other can focus on assembling hardware to cabinets. This means that joining of the cabinets and the slides can take place during the final phases of the assembly when you have the disconnect option. A good rule of thumb is that the disconnect option is not recommended when you are dealing with heavy-duty applications. It becomes a safety concern when you have to disassemble a fully-loaded drawer in the event that you want to clean it. To choose the right soft close drawer hardware, you therefore need to at least know some basic and in the event that you don’t know where to start, ask from industrial expert on what to look for in soft close drawer hardware.