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I finally figured out why my drawer slides kept failing

Been building kitchen cabinets for about 5 years now, and I kept having issues with soft-close drawer slides binding up after a few months. Turns out I was drilling my pilot holes too deep, like 3/16 of an inch past the material. Shaved that down and used a depth stop on my drill, and the last 12 drawers I did for a client in Denver slid smooth as butter. Anyone else run into this or am I just slow to learn?

3 comments

3 Comments

rayc892mo ago

You ever have a buddy who swears he's been doing something right for years and then finds out he's been messing it up the whole time? My friend Tom used to have the same problem with his drawer slides, and he blamed the hardware until he realized his drill bit was wandering off-center. He used a cheap centering bit after that and never looked back.

lee_butler2mo ago

Did he ever figure out if it was the bit wandering or just him not keeping the drill straight? I've seen guys swear they're holding it level when they're actually canted five degrees off.

anna_carter5323d ago

It's funny how that applies to so many things beyond drilling. Like cooking, you can follow a recipe exactly but if your oven runs hot or your measuring cups are off, everything changes. I had a friend who blamed his sourdough starter for years until someone clocked his kitchen scale was busted. Or think about guitar players who swear their intonation is perfect but they've been pressing too hard on the frets the whole time. There's this whole category of "it's not the tool, it's the user" stuff that people just hate admitting because it feels like a personal attack on their skill.