Installation of telescopic guides for a furniture drawer. Dimensions and features of ball guides for drawers

Equipment drawers ball (telescopic) guides gives significant advantages in their operation. They ensure smooth and silent sliding of drawers in kitchen cabinets, chests of drawers, sliding wardrobes and other furniture.

The components of the guides move easily thanks to the strong metal balls inside the profile, which allows, if necessary, to extend the loaded drawers to their full length. Some models extend by 90 cm and can withstand loads up to 45 kg.

In addition to these advantages, one can note their affordable cost, wear resistance and, importantly, ball guides for drawers are not difficult to install on their own.

In order for the mechanism to work flawlessly, it is necessary to correctly mark the attachment points of the components. There should be gaps between the wall of the box and the side of the cabinet on both sides, in which the guides will be placed. Usually it is 13 cm on each side.

Drawer Parts Calculation Scheme

The length of the guides is from 25 to 90 cm in increments of 5 cm, they should be approximately 6-10 cm shorter than the box itself. Therefore, the mechanism is mounted in the middle of the side wall of the box, leaving small gaps in front and behind.

Also, there must be at least 10 mm of free space between the back walls of the drawer and the cabinet. The easiest way to make markings and fasten the guides in the process of assembling furniture is much more convenient and faster.

Markup and installation

First of all, draw lines of attachment. It is recommended to mount the guides on the box in the center, but mounting is also allowed in its lower part. A similar line is marked on the inner side of the cabinet. The smoothness of the movement and the duration of the operation of the mechanism will depend on the accuracy of the measurements.

Before installation, the guides are divided into halves: pressing the black "antennae", they pull out the inside of the device. The halves are attached to the marked lines, then the box is brought into place, they try to close it and push it out.

If everything was done correctly, the latch will work and a slight click will be heard. This is a signal for the final fixing of the guides. Otherwise, you will have to slightly loosen the fasteners and still adjust the mechanism.

There are oblong holes on both parts of the structure: the vertical ones are designed to move the bar up and down, and the horizontal ones are for horizontal adjustment. By carefully adjusting the mechanism, you can finally fix the elements with self-tapping screws or screws.

Telescopic rails are available in left and right versions and cannot be interchanged.

Guides can provide partial or full extension of drawers, be with or without closers, be equipped with push system to open when the drawer does not have a handle, and it is enough to press it to open it. Also, products can be equipped with a reliable latch that holds the boxes in the closed position.

Video: Replacing telescopic rails

Roller guides- the most popular mechanism of promotion for boxes. It is cheap and reliable enough, and at the same time - easy to install.

The rails are attached to the sidewall of the cabinet with 3x15 screws, to the drawer - with 3x25 screws. Alignment - along the bottom edge of the drawer. Minimum distance from the bottom of the cabinet - 5 mm.

The space occupied by the guides is 12.5 ... 13 mm on each side of the drawer. Therefore, if we decide to use roller guides, then the overall width of the drawer should be 26 mm less than the internal size of the cabinet. Here you can order high-quality dressers that can be used for any interior and that fit perfectly with the rest of the furniture, you can on the website of the Buy Furniture store. If a cabinet with a width of 400 mm is made of chipboard with a thickness of 18 mm, then the overall width of the drawer will be:

400-18-18-26 = 338 mm.

Roller guides are made of steel 1 ... 1.2 mm thick. The length of the guides is from 250 mm to 600 mm, in increments of 50 mm. They have self-rolling protection. Bearing capacity - 26 kg.

The guides are not symmetrical: one guide has a chute that wraps around the roller, while the other has a shelf. The shelf is not limited in displacement to the right - * to the left, which prevents the guides from biting in case of uneven force on the facade, and also forgives the assembly inaccuracy of + - 1 mm.

Roller guides are available in white, black, brown and grey.

The advantage of roller guides is low cost and ease of installation. The disadvantages include the fact that with full extension of 5-7 cm drawer still remain in the box.

Ball guides have a soft, smooth ride. As a rule, they are telescopic - they allow you to pull out the drawer completely. Such slides can carry up to 49 kg, drawers mounted on ball mechanisms move more elegantly.

The rails are attached to the sidewall of the cabinet and to the drawer with 3x15 screws Alignment - along the lower or upper edge of the drawer. The minimum distance from the bottom of the pedestal is 5 mm.

Ball bearings require 14mm of space on each side of the drawer, so the overall width of the drawer must be 28mm less than the inside dimension of the cabinet. If a cabinet with a width of 400 mm is made of chipboard with a thickness of 18 mm, then the overall width of the drawer will be:

400-18-18-6 = 358 mm.

It should be noted that the material suitable for such a box is thickness of which is not more than 16 mm.

TANDEMBOX drawer systems- these are expensive boxes of increased carrying capacity, with metal sides and stackable metal or glass sides. Usually used with closers.

They, like Metaboxes, do not have sides made of chipboard - there is only a bottom and a back wall.

The bottom width of such a drawer will be 75 mm less than the inner width of the pedestal in which the drawer is mounted, depth - gdepth - 24 mm less than the length (number) of the guide; TANDEMBOX guides are available in lengths of 270mm, 350mm....650mm, in 50mm increments.

Width rear wall - 87 mm less than the inner width of the pedestal in which the drawer is mounted, and the height depends on the selected height according to the assortment: the fact is that the rear wall is attached to brackets that have standard dimensions.

TANDEMBOX drawer heights can be:

68 mm - height "N";
83 mm - height "M";
115 mm - height "K";
140 mm - height "B";
172 mm - height "C";
204 mm - - height "D";

The chipboard used must be 16 mm thick- otherwise it will not sit in the groove!

The fastening of the facade is solved with the help of adjustable brackets, which are also removed without tools along with the facade.

The figure shows:

Application areaTANDEMBOX - dear kitchen furniture, therefore, various intra-box partitions, trays, holders, etc. have been developed for the system.

The Hettich developers have gone further: their tandembox analogue uses a metal back wall. On the one hand, this is good, on the other, not very good, since the width of the box is tied to standards, and starts from 450 mm (400 is not).

One set of a deep drawer with additional sidewalls costs an average of 50-55 EURO. But there are also Chinese counterparts at a price two times cheaper.

Let's summarize...

For a conventional computer or desk use conventional roller guides;
For a chest of drawers, drawers in a children's room, a bedroom - it is better to use full extension ball guides (telescope);
For the kitchen - boxes with metal sides; if there is no money - then METABOX, it is possible with closers, if there is money - better TANDEMBOX.
In the wall common room- hidden guides, if there is no money - at least ball telescopes.
The simplest installation - roller guides, the most difficult - TANDEMBOX.

.: New on the topic

Let's move on today to a better, in my opinion, than roller guides, extension system - ball guides.

Let's analyze the installation using the example of assembling a kind of sideboard in the kitchen with four drawers.
Calculations of the parameters of its drawers do not differ much from the rollers.

The width of the drawer is equal to the inner width of the box minus 25 mm.

The depth of the drawer, as a rule, corresponds to the length of the guides themselves, but it can be more (in this case, the drawer will not fully extend.

Example: calculate the parameters of a drawer for a chest of drawers 600 mm wide and 500 mm deep

Width = 600-32-25=543mm
The depth of the drawer will be 450 mm (because it standard size guide, and the box should not reach a couple of centimeters to the back wall of the box).
That is, the fronts of the drawers (insets) will be 543-32 mm = 511 mm
The side walls of the boxes will be 450 mm.
The bottom of the box (DVPO) will be 450x543 mm

So we order cutting chipboard, that is, at the output we get 5 parts for each box of given sizes (parts from chipboard are cut along the length on one side). Plus the facade, depends on the size of the box.

At the ends (in the center) of the fronts, holes are drilled for confirmations (one or two - in this case - one). Opposite them, in the face of the side walls, stepping back from the edge of 8 mm, through holes of 7-8 mm are drilled - under the caps of confirmations.

Now let's do the markup. On the side racks of the box (to which the boxes will be attached), we first mark the boundaries of the facades with gaps between them (2 mm each). Then we mark the axis of the guide, first on the side wall - for example, we retreat 10 mm from below. And then on the counter - so that the box does not protrude from behind the facade, it must be made a little higher, that is, we retreat 20 mm from the lower edge of the facade.

On these axes, set aside 37 mm - the center of the mounting hole in the guide.

After that, we disassemble the guides into two elements.

For those who do not know how this is done, I have prepared the next slide - you need to move (in the photo up) the plastic retainer, after which both components of the guides are easily disconnected.

On the side walls - on the axis of the guides, we prick the centers of the mounting holes with an awl.

We fix these components on the walls of the boxes.

We direct the second (large) half to the walls - taking into account the holes previously marked and pierced with an awl.

We assemble the chest of drawers itself (in our case, this is a sideboard).

We proceed to the assembly of the box: we tighten the walls into pre-drilled holes.

We check the perpendicularity of the walls of the box using a carpenter's square.

We fix these results by fastening the bottom from DVPO - this should be done on self-tapping screws with a pitch of at least 150 mm. I use 25mm screws.

It remains to install the assembled boxes on the guides in the furniture box and you can proceed to fixing the facade (how to do this, I already wrote earlier -).

We'll show you how to mount them in a front frame enclosure where you need to add mounting brackets at the back and sometimes at the front. In a case that does not have a front frame, such guides are installed even easier.

Before proceeding with the manufacture of a cabinet with drawers or a chest of drawers, we advise you to buy retractable rails in advance, or at least find out about them. exact dimensions and installation features. Then make the case taking into account the dimensions of the guides. Drawers must be strictly rectangular and not skewed.

Most of the rails that are attached to the sides of the drawers are about 12.5 mm thick when assembled. Therefore, when determining the dimensions of the drawers, subtract 25 mm from the width of the opening to get a place to install the rails. (Bottom-mounted rails are typically 10mm thick. Instructions for mounting them are at the end of this article.) If you need to use brackets to attach the rails to the back of the cabinet, shorten the length of the drawer so that it does not rest against the brackets when closing.

Roller guides are inexpensive and available

Their benefits

They usually sell for under $10 a pair and can be found in most malls.
The drawer parts of such guides are adjacent to the side walls from the bottom and side, so it is almost impossible to install them incorrectly.
Compared to other types of guides, they are less sensitive to small misalignments, since there are gaps of about 1 mm between the groove edges and the plastic roller.
They do not require lubrication and are ideal for dusty environments such as a carpentry shop.

For ease of installation, we attached the body of the rails to the rear wall using standard brackets, sold separately. Before starting work, divide the guides into two parts: drawer and cabinet.

Install the rails into the case first

1. Place the body part of the guide on the facade frame, slightly moving its front edge deep into the opening. We recommend that you use a mounting tool that makes it easy to hold the body in place. desired position (photo A, B) or just hold it with your hand to align it, as described in the next step. Drill a pilot hole and drive one screw into the front frame.

While holding the guide perpendicular to the front frame, secure it with a screw. The Kreg magnetic tool makes the job easier.

If the chassis is on a level surface, you can level the rails using a small level secured with masking tape.

2. Measure the gap between the side wall of the cabinet and the rail to set it at right angles to the front frame (photo C).

To make sure the rail is parallel to the side wall, measure the distances at the front and back.

By screwing one screw into the horizontal slot, you can adjust the position of the drawer from side to side after installing the second rail.

3. Insert a screw into one of the horizontal slots on the rear bracket flange (a photoD).

4. Do it steps 1-3 on the other side of the opening.

Now take care of the box

Using the supplied screws, fix the rail first against the front wall of the drawer. Then screw in the screw at the far end.

1. Attach the drawer part of the rail to the side wall of the drawer by sliding it 1mm back from the front (photo E). Do the same for the other side of the box.

2. Insert the drawer into the body and check that the guides work correctly. If the drawer gets stuck, loosen the screws securing the rear brackets and adjust the position of both body parts so that the rollers roll smoothly.

If misalignment is found, loosen the screws securing the rear brackets and slide the rear ends of the rails down until there are no gaps.

3. Using a ruler, make sure that the front of the drawer is flush with the body (a photoF). If the drawer needs to be raised or lowered slightly, first install the screws in the middle of the vertical slot in the rear brackets. Remove the screws from the horizontal slots, adjust the position of the drawer by sliding it up or down, and then screw the screws back into the horizontal slots.

4. With the front of the drawer aligned with the front frame and smooth running, install screws in the remaining holes to secure the slide rails in place.

(If the drawers are mortise, then their front walls will be the front surfaces. If you plan to attach false panels to the front walls, do this after installing the rails and adjusting them).

Ball guides for heavy loads

Their benefits

Attach them first to the box

1. The drawer parts of the rails are installed first. After sliding the guide pieces and aligning them with the bottom and front of the drawer, secure the front end by screwing the screw into the vertical slot (a photoG). Then add a screw at the other end.

3. Do the same on the other side of the drawer, then separate the body parts of the rails.

Now the body

With the flange bend resting against the facade frame and holding the guide horizontally, attach it to the frame with two screws.

1. Insert the body of the rail into the front mounting flange (sold separately) and press the bent back of the flange firmly against the back of the front frame to create the required clearance. (photo H).

2. Attach a small level (or use a level with a magnetic base) on top of the guide with masking tape and use it to align the body part horizontally. (First use wedges to level the chassis itself.) Measure the gap between the rail and the side wall to make sure it is parallel.

Use a center drill to make holes, and then drive a screw into the middle of the horizontal slot to adjust the position of the drawer.

3. Attach the rear mounting bracket to the back wall (photo I).

4. Gently slide the drawer into the cabinet and slide gently until both latches engage. For adjustment, use the same methods as for roller guides, starting from step 4.

5. Screw the screws into the remaining holes to secure the rails completely.

Bottom rails are completely hidden from view

Their benefits

Thanks to their arrangement, the width of the drawer can be almost equal to the width of the opening, only 3 mm gaps are required on each side.
The use of a single guide in the middle of the drawer reduces the cost of fittings .

If you install only one bottom rail for each drawer, you need to reduce the load by about half compared to the same drawers with two rails. (Single rails are usually rated at around 12kg.) Installation requires more than just screws—the bottom of the drawer must be 12mm thick, or a spacer must be added, as shown in bottom photo at the beginning of the article. Most rails of this type are 10 mm thick, but a 12 mm high space should be left under the bottom of the drawer. This will provide a gap between the walls of the box and the facade frame.

Attach to the box first

1. For an inset drawer, align the guide at the center of its width flush with the front wall. If the drawer has a false panel, make cutouts in the lower edges of the walls (a photoJ), to position the guide flush with the front of the drawer.

3. Align the rail and attach it with screws front and back (photo K).

Mark lines on the front and back walls with an indent of 3 mm from the guide and make cuts to the very bottom of the box. Remove the rest with a chisel.

With the front end of the rail secured with one screw, measure the distance to the side wall to ensure parallelism.

How to attach to the body

1. Attach the front end of the rail to the front frame with one screw (a photoL). For a mortise drawer, first fasten a 1-9 mm thick boss to the back of the front frame, to which the guide will be attached.

2. Using the mounting bracket, attach the other end of the rail to the back of the cabinet, making sure it is perpendicular to the front frame. If your cabinet has a dust cover under the drawer, you can attach the rail directly to it instead of to the back wall.

Attach the body part in the middle of the opening of the facade frame, moving back 1 mm. The screw may have to be screwed in at a slight angle due to the interfering crossbar at the top.

Anti-friction pads not only prevent the box from swaying, but also make it slide more smoothly.

3. For additional support of the drawer and to prevent distortions, install anti-friction pads in the corners of the front frame opening, where the side walls will slide on them (photo M).

No matter how fast progress progresses, the most popular today are telescopic or as they are also called full extension ball guides.

For those who don't know, they look like this:

Their advantages include:

Relatively low cost;
Smooth and most importantly quiet running throughout their entire service life;
Ability to withstand the impact of significant loads;
Excellent strength and wear resistance;
Simplicity and ease of installation;

Guides of this kind are most often used as sliding mechanisms for chests of drawers, kitchen sections and many other mechanisms, with the operation of which the owners do not want to have problems during their operation.

Calculation of drawer details

In order to correctly install the full extension telescopic rails, you need to be sure that you have done the detailing of the drawer correctly.

The assembled box without a facade installed on it in width means that between the box itself and the sidewall of the product there should be a gap of 26 millimeters, that is, 13 millimeters on each side. These are the dimensions (13 millimeters) of full extension telescopic guides.

The length (depth) of the box should be 6-10 millimeters longer than the guides, which, as a rule, have a length of 25 to 80 centimeters in 5-centimeter increments. Thus, when mounting the rails, place them in the middle of the drawer, leaving a minimum gap in front and behind the drawer. And also, do not forget about the gap of at least 10 millimeters between the back wall of the drawer and the back wall of the product (chest of drawers).

The height of the box is usually made based on its purpose and the needs of its owners, who will use it. But, as a rule, in the aisles from 8 to 25 centimeters.

Marking the attachment points of the telescopic rails

The process of installing full extension telescopic guides is much simpler than it might seem to a person who first deals with them, so to speak, picked them up for the first time.

When you take telescopes in your hands, you can notice peculiar antennae, usually black, on it, so if you squeeze them and pull on one half, then it will disassemble into two parts, one of which is attached to the inner side of the chest of drawers, and the second to the side of the drawer.

By the way, you need to be extremely careful, since telescopes are right and left and cannot be rearranged.

Your main goal is to determine the exact mounting points for the rails, fix each of the halves of the telescopes with three screws and carefully slide the box into the chest of drawers, thereby connecting the two parts of the telescopic rail into one.

Mounting ball telescopic guides

We make the markup of the drawer: draw a line horizontally strictly in the center on both sides of the drawer with a pencil, and screw one of the halves of the guide along it, or rather the thinnest one (the one that goes inside the guide). Similarly, it is necessary to mark the line along inside chest of drawers and screw telescopes.

The exact dimensions are indicated in or another product you are working on. Marking and installation must be done, as shown in the figure below:

In our case, we mark 418 millimeters from the floor on one sidewall, and we mount the telescope at this height. Similarly, we make markings and fix the telescope on the second side of the chest of drawers.

Well, that's all the most difficult work is finished, then strictly along the marked line we fasten the halves of the guide to the sides of the chest of drawers and the drawer, after which you can put the drawer in its place. It remains to install furniture facades on the drawers and all the chest of drawers is ready.

For one drawer you need two pairs of guides. Some guides are attached to the drawer, while others are attached to furniture racks. Let's consider a variant of a curbstone with drawers.

In order to design and then install boxes, you need to know the following parameters:

drawer front height
drawer size – width, depth, height
dimensions for attaching rails to racks

For example, you need to make a cabinet for three drawers. Cabinet dimensions: width - 420 mm, height without legs - 560 mm, depth - 505 mm.

The lid of the chest of drawers will hang over the facades, the facades will be overhead. To calculate the boxes, the parameters of the roller guides will be used.

The first thing to decide is the height of the facades. We draw a diagram of the cabinet, side view. First, we put down the required gaps: between the dresser lid and all other facades - 3 mm, the indent from the bottom of the cabinet - 4 mm.

We calculate the height of the facades:

Plus all the gaps and indents: 3+3+3+4 = 13
Subtract the amount received from the working height of the chest of drawers: 523 -13 \u003d 510
We divide the result by the number of facades: 510: 3 = 170

The height of one facade is 170 mm. The width of the facade is 6 mm less than the total width of the product: 420 - 6 = 414 mm.

The thickness of one pair of roller guides is 12.5mm. The total thickness of two pairs of roller guides is 12.5 + 12.5 = 25mm. Let's add one more millimeter in order to prevent the heads of the self-tapping screws from touching the guides, the total clearance is 26mm.

Now you need to mark the lines for attaching the guides to the chest of drawers. Marking should always start from the top edge of the part. And even if you make a little mistake, below it will not be noticeable. For markup, you can use next rule: the line on which the guide will be screwed must be 35mm higher than the bottom of the facade.

There are 3 drawers in this cabinet, there should be 3 lines.

1st line. 3 (indent from the top) + 170 (front height) - 35 = 138 mm
2nd line. 3 + 170 + 3 (gap between facades) + 170 - 35 = 311 mm
3rd line. 3 + 170 + 3 + 170 + 3 + 170 - 35 = 484 mm

In this article, you can get acquainted with the step-by-step instructions for installing roller furniture guides. You can easily make from marking to adjustment.

Roller guides make it easy to move the drawers. Roller guides - the mechanism is simple and inexpensive to manufacture, however, the disadvantage of this system is the noise and the calculation for the small weight of the boxes. Otherwise, they begin to creak over time, the rollers break, the guides bend. An alternative to roller guides are full extension guides.

Full extension guides

Step-by-step instructions for mounting roller guides

Start installing the roller guides by attaching the two guides to the bottom of the drawer. In this case, the roller itself should not be located at the facade, but at the back wall of the box, the other end of the bar rests against the facade. It is more convenient to attach the bar with self-tapping screws to the bottom of the box, and not to the sidewalls, despite the fact that holes are also provided in the side parts of the guides, since the second roller will move along the side. Make sure that the heads of the screws do not protrude above the surface of the plank, as this will interfere with the movement of the box. There are two types of holes in the system: round and oblong. For beginner assemblers, we recommend using oblong holes that allow for slight adjustments in position.

Attaching another pair of rails to the body of the cabinet or cabinet can be done in two ways:

1. Make careful measurements, mark the place for drilling holes for self-tapping screws, drill holes, apply a guide and fix it in at least three places.

2. Mark the location of the guide with a pencil, attach it to the mark and immediately fix it with self-tapping screws.

An important point - now the roller should be from the side of the facade.

	1. We fasten the guide with self-tapping screws to the bottom of the drawer. Roller from the rear wall.
	2. The bar is fixed in at least three points.
	3. We measure the location of the second pair of guides. The indentation from the edge should be 2 mm.
	4. We measure the height of the guide. If you plan to fill the box with heavy items, add to the height position of the guide a few millimeters to compensate for a slight deflection of the bottom of the box.
	5. We fix the guides with self-tapping screws.
	6. Self-tapping screws are screwed in at three points.
	7. The roller is located at the front side.
	8. Insert the box.
	The facade should not be skewed, it is tightly adheres to the case body. If there is a slight distortion or slot, you have the option to adjust the drawer using the aforementioned oblong holes for self-tapping screws. To do this, loosen the screw with a screwdriver. and slightly change the position of the guide. Tighten self-tapping screw and check the front and drawer movement again.

At self-manufacturing furniture - various cabinets with drawers - key point in the assembly is mounting rails. Roller guides provide the process of movement of the retractable element. The mechanism of the sliding system is quite simple and includes rollers and skids on which they move. The rollers are fixed on the outside of the box box. The skids for their movement are installed inside the cabinet on the sides of the free niche. When assembling the mechanism, it is very important to install the elements so that they match exactly. If an inaccuracy is made, the furniture will be damaged. IN best case the mechanism will jam and not work smoothly. In the worst case, it will not be possible to assemble the drawer, and all the materials used will be damaged. In addition, dismantling the mechanism can be quite problematic. Before carrying out work, you need to perform simple calculations to get the desired result.

Calculation of guides

In order for the drawers to ideally occupy the space allotted to them, it is necessary to perform calculations for the roller guides before installing them. The best way to describe the order of calculations is with an example. If you need to build, for example, a bedside table with two identical drawers, then first of all you need to measure its parameters. For a cabinet with a sidewall height of 367, a plinth height of 70 and a gap between the facades, the height of one facade will be: (368-70-2 * 3) / 2 = 146 mm.

With the same element sizes best option their installation - to make them interchangeable.

To do this, the calculation must take into account extreme positions boxes. In addition, you should pay attention to the overlap of the facades and the cabinet frame. The lower limit of the installation of roller guides is determined by the bottom of the pedestal. When installing the box on it, the bottom must coincide with its lower edge.

To avoid touching the bottom of the cabinet, you need to add 4 mm to the head of the self-tapping screw. The mounting height of the lower element of the mechanism will be equal to the sum of the height of the screw head and the value of the center line of the hole, that is, in this example: 18+4=22 mm. You can calculate the location of the details of the mechanism from the lower end of the sidewall of the pedestal. In this case: plinth + bottom thickness + guide mounting height from the bottom = 70 + 16 + 22 = 108 mm.

It is worth noting that the head of the self-tapping screw is usually less than 4 mm. Its average size is 1-1.5. The size is taken as 4 for the universality of the calculation. The results obtained will also be applicable if material 18 mm thick, and not 16 mm, is used for the manufacture of the cabinet. At the same time, a small gap will still remain.

The same procedure is used to calculate the height of the facade for the upper element, only taking into account the placement of the lower ones. After performing the calculations and markup according to the data obtained, you can proceed to the installation.

Guide types
Installation of roller elements
Installation of ball guides

Home craftsmen often have to assemble furniture with their own hands. This also happens when buying ready-made interior items and when making cabinets, cabinets, tables and the like on your own. Wherein correct fastening guides on a wide variety of drawers becomes a real stumbling block. Despite the seeming simplicity of this work, installation errors can lead to sad consequences. In progress further exploitation furniture can be a big problem. Therefore, it is important to immediately determine the type of guides themselves and the method of their installation.

Guide types

On the this moment There are 2 main types of guides that are installed on the drawer. These are roller and ball systems. There are also other designs: hidden, with closers, telescopic and so on. But they are not installed by hand. Such installation is carried out in the factory.

Roller guides are usually 2 perforated strips for fasteners. Plastic wheels are fixed at the ends of the structures. Thanks to them, the drawers move forward.

Figure 1. Types of guides.

Such systems have a number of significant disadvantages:

The drawers make an unpleasant sound during operation.
Wheels are unreliable and quickly become unusable.
With a strong jerk, the box may fall out of its nest.

But such guides also have advantages. They are cheap and easy to install.

Ball systems are also called full extension guides. This is a telescopic design that allows you to extend the drawer to the full length of the bar. Inside the system are metal balls that provide a smooth and almost silent movement.

The main difference between roller and ball systems is that the first one consists of 2 profiles independent of each other, and the second one is one-piece. In the 1st case, 1 plank is attached directly to the drawer wall, and the 2nd to the furniture. The rollers are disassembled only during installation. And when assembled, they look like a one-piece structure. It is this feature of them that ensures the reliability of the fasteners: the storage space does not fall out even with a strong jerk. Appearance different guides is shown in Fig.1.

At the moment, guides can be found in stores different sizes. This allows you to choose finished structure to interior items of any type and depth. As a rule, roller systems are placed on boxes for which a serious load is not expected. They can be found in linen and clothing cabinets, kitchen modules (for example, for storing cutlery), hallways. Ball-shaped structures are placed on the linen boxes of beds, furniture intended for children's rooms.