Why Are Good Drawer Guides Essential in Your Furniture?

These days, almost every piece of residential and commercial furniture comes with specialized hardware that allows the drawers to be extended and retracted smoothly. However, there is a noticeable difference in quality between a cheaply-made drawer slide and one manufactured to high precision standards, using the best materials. A simple telescoping slide is nothing new and has been around for over a century.

However, advances in machining, ball bearing technology, lubricants, and other areas have allowed drawer slide manufacturers to create slides that perfectly fit contemporary furniture. Sleek, quiet, and requiring next to no effort, these slides are the future of furniture design. You might ask- why invest in a good drawer slide when any cheap piece of kit from the local Home Depot will get the job done?

The benefit of spending more on a good drawer slide pays dividends over time, in the long run. Think about each time you open your kitchen drawer to pull out some plates. Every time you try to grab a tool from the storage in your workshop. Low-grade slides generate more friction, making them harder to pull and noisier. They also don’t have features that make your life a whole lot easier, such as soft-close. So every time you push the drawer back, it slams into the frame with an ear-shattering thud. But before we explain the benefits of good drawer slides in more detail, let’s first understand what these things are and why you need them in the first place.

Why Do You Need Drawer Slides?

Before standardized drawer hardware, cabinet makers would often install proprietary runners on the side of each drawer. These took up more manhours and were harder to replace when they broke down, costing you even more money. Some of the cheaper cabinets didn’t have any hardware at all, so the drawer sat directly on top of the cabinet frame.

Not having a drawer slide can cause issues. Because wood swells and bends depending on the climate. So unless you have the dimensions perfect, drawers will get stuck when exposed to moisture. Or, you could go with loose tolerances and have a drawer that wobbles all over the place and jumps out as soon as you tilt the cabinet even slightly.

Once slides (also known as runners) became standardized with mass production pumping out these devices in large numbers, prices dropped and everybody wanted one. Almost all slides operate on the same basic principle- you have a set of guide rails that mount to the drawer carcass or cabinet frame, with a telescoping pole installed inside this rail that attaches to the actual drawer. There is also a slide stop to prevent the drawer from sliding out and falling. Cheaper slides use plastic roller wheels, while good ones that are rated for heavier loads often use ball bearings nested in a bed of grease.

The Importance of Good Drawer Slides

Now that you understand why drawer slides are necessary for the smooth operation of a cabinet, let’s talk about the difference a good one can make. The telescoping sections inside a slide are constantly grinding against each other, as you pull or push on the drawer. Depending on the manufacturer’s tolerances and materials used, this can be soft as a breeze or harsher than gravel in a cement mixer. If you’ve ever found yourself startled by the sound of a creaky door hinge in the middle of a nap, you know what we’re talking about.

Good slides are also made with user convenience in mind. Not everyone is a professional woodworker, but can easily install a well-designed drawer slide with the most basic of tools by following the instructions on the booklet. With cheaper options, you won’t be as lucky and might have to shell out extra on hiring someone to do the job for you, negating your savings in the process.

Another thing worth noting is that everybody has different applications and requirements. Some might want a light-duty nightstand drawer for some reading glasses and books, others might want a heavy-duty drawer for storing workshop tools. You can find cheap slides that are rated for high loads but they won’t be able to sustain this strength over hundreds of cycles, like what you’d expect from a busy workshop. They’ll also use lower-quality steel which makes them more susceptible to corrosion, especially if you live in a somewhat humid area (or if your cabinet is in the basement).

Selecting The Right Drawer Slide For Your Needs

While it’s easy to understand the advantages offered by a good drawer slide, finding the right one for your needs can be surprisingly hard. Because everyone has different requirements and budgets. But worry not, we here at Tallsen have extensive experience in the manufacturing and supplying of quality slides. While it would be easy to recommend our catalog of slides that fulfill a wide range of needs, we also understand that a well-informed customer is a happy customer. So let’s quickly run you through the most important criteria by which you should select a drawer slide

What will it be used for?

First up is load rating, or how much weight you can put on the slide. The heavier you go, the wider and thicker the slide becomes. This means you have to increase the clearance between your drawer and cabinet frame, slightly reducing the internal volume of your drawer. Usually, half an inch should be enough for most slides rated up to 30kgs. Note that the load rating isn’t valid unless the slide can also sustain this weight when fully extended. This is another area where buying a quality slide will pay dividends in the long run. For example, our SL9451 full-extension slide is rated for 35 kilos and up to 50,000 pull/push motions. That’s because it’s made from 1.2mm cold-rolled steel and coated with zinc for excellent corrosion resistance.

Where will you put it?

If you want a slide for your bookshelf, you probably don’t need a very high load rating. However, you will want one with full extension which means the drawer comes all the way out. Cheaper slides only have a partial extension, so the last 15 to 20 percent of space is hidden underneath the desk and you’ll have to reach in to access anything that’s in there. Kitchen cabinets also feature full-extension slides for the same reason, so you can easily access your cookware without it getting stuck in the back of the drawer.

Our Tallsen SL8453 is an excellent choice for kitchen cabinets and bookshelves, with its full extension. The soft-close system gently retracts the drawer during the last few inches of its travel, protecting your utensils. And since we use top-notch ball bearings and hydraulic dampers, our slides are also some of the quietest in the entire industry.

What kind of furniture do you have?

If you're getting a drawer slide for your nightstand or computer desk, you probably don’t need a full-extension slide. Instead, you should prioritize a low-profile slide that’s cheap and durable, while also being smooth in its operation. Something like the Tallsen SL3453, which is ideal for office desks, workstations, and computer tables. It’s affordable, made from high-quality cold-rolled steel, and comes with an optional weather-resistant electrophoretic coating that’s 8 times more protective than a regular zinc coating. And the best part is that it’s fairly slim, despite having a maximum load rating of up to 45kg.

Custom furniture made from exquisite hardwood should use under-mount slides that attach to the floorplate of the drawer. This keeps the slide hidden, and out of sight so you can marvel at the exquisite craftsmanship of your furniture instead of staring at an exposed metal bar hanging out the side. Once again, we at Tallsen have a wide range of under-mount slide options to help you get the perfect look for your custom furniture.

Do you want maximum convenience?

Features like soft-close and push-to-open can significantly enhance your experience. Push-to-open comes in handy when you’re already holding something and can’t grab a handle to pull the drawer out, like in the kitchen. Modern kitchen cabinets are also quite sleek and minimalistic in their design. So if you don’t want to ruin the look by having a handle poking out of every drawer, a push-to-open slide is your best friend.

Soft close is another life-saver, it uses a combination of springs and hydraulic dampers to slow down the drawer as it nears its fully retracted position. This prevents the back from banging forcefully into the cabinet frame if you accidentally put too much force into the push. It is also a very elegant way of closing the drawer since you can lightly tap the face, and the drawer will practically close itself.

Ease of installation and removal

A good drawer slide should require no more than some basic tools and a few minutes of your time to install. Removing the drawer should be even easier, so you can easily inspect all the contents and add/ remove stuff as you wish. Our under-mount slides excel in this regard, as you can remove the entire drawer simply by reaching underneath and pulling on a pair of plastic tabs to unhook the mechanism from the rails.

Pricing

Finally, we arrive at pricing- possibly the most important factor when choosing a drawer slide. We understand that customers always look for the best value in terms of quality and features. And you don’t always have to buy the priciest option to get a good product. In fact, some of the best drawer slides sit right in the middle- between the cheap stuff and the super expensive ones. Whether you’re buying affordable or expensive, what IS important is that you buy from a reputable drawer slide manufacturer or drawer slide supplier. Because this way, you’re going to get a good product that will last for a long time, backed by a proper warranty.

What We Recommend

Ultimately, you should buy the best slide for YOUR needs which may be different from that of most people. We give you the advice, you make the choice based on your budget and where you’ll mount the slide. Is it the workshop? Or perhaps you want a drawer slide for a kitchen cabinet? Maybe you’re building a bookcase and want several cheap low-profile slides. In this case, you should contact us because we have a wide range of slides for every category, made to German quality standards. Our extensive R&D combined with our product testing center means that everything you get from Tallsen has already been proven to work under the most stressful conditions possible. Our slides will keep working- whether they’re enjoying a comfortable life inside the house or exposed to the elements in an outdoor workspace. If all this knowledge about drawer slides has motivated you to purchase a set for your home or workshop, feel free to reach out to us. We do bulk orders for cabinet makers, professionals, and manufacturers.