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Thread: Kitchen drawer box systems
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11th January 2020, 09:06 AM #1Boucher de Bois
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Kitchen drawer box systems
I'm about to start a kitchen renovation, making all of the cabinetry myself from birch ply. I'll be using metal sided boxes for the drawers, either Blum Legrabox, Hettich ArciTech or Grass Nova Pro Scala.
When looking at the catalogues for these, some of them list different part numbers for the runners depending on whether they are going in a cabinet with 16mm sides vs 18mm sides. I can't for the life of me work out why they should be any different: surely the only measurement that matters for a drawer is the internal width between sides? We're not talking standard width cabinets here, and the drawer systems are supplied with sides only (with the back, front and base made up by the cabinetmaker).
Can anyone shed any light on this?
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11th January 2020, 10:28 PM #2Taking a break
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Could you provide some examples? I've just been looking through both the Blum and Hettich catalogues and can't seem to find 2 sets of components
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12th January 2020, 06:17 AM #3Boucher de Bois
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Check out p34 to 36 of the Grass catalogue: NOVA PRO SCALA DRAWER SYSTEM
There are also two listings for Hettich Actro runners.
Hettich online catalogue
And
Hettich online catalogue
There was also more detail (including diagrams) in one of the big Hettich pdf docs, which I can't find again now...
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12th January 2020, 09:24 AM #4Taking a break
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OK, that is extremely weird and I have absolutely no clue; it's almost like they're trying to make things less complicated but they accidentally made it much worse.
I've always preferred Blum because I think their soft-close action is better than the others, but after this I'd go with them just to avoid the headache.
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12th January 2020, 10:09 AM #5Boucher de Bois
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We spent a bit of time yesterday opening and shutting drawers in display kitchens. Blum Legrabox did seem to have the nicest action (and was the quietest), but the Grass was also very good, and has a nicer side profile than the Hettich or the Blum Tandembox. I think it's between the Legrabox and the Grass at this point, so we'll see what the respective pricing is like for the two systems.
One plus for the Grass is that I wouldn't have to faff about routing those wide rebates in each side of the base piece that you need for the Legrabox.
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12th January 2020, 10:17 AM #6Taking a break
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You could do the rebate on the table saw in 2 cuts instead of stuffing about with a router; stand it up on edge for the first cut, then lay it flat for the second cut. Used to do it all the time at my old work.
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12th January 2020, 10:38 AM #7Boucher de Bois
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Don't have a tablesaw I will be using a track saw for cutting everything out.
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12th January 2020, 03:21 PM #8
I agree with Elan.
Eight years ago, as "practice" before a kitchen rebuild, I built a nineteen drawer cabinet for my shed, and trialled every type of soft close drawer slides that I could then find. My conclusions were:
- Blum under drawer slides were smoothest,
- Next were Hettich metal sided, (by very small margin),
- Followed by Blum metal sided (by very small margin),
- Price differentials did not justify slightly inferior actions of other brands,
- Powder coated stuff sold by BigChain was grossly overpriced junk.
Eight years later I have not changed my mind. For our kitchen I eventually went with Blum on price. Still very satisfied.
Cheers
Graeme
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12th January 2020, 05:20 PM #9Boucher de Bois
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It'll be interesting to see where the pricing lands. Nobody actually lists prices for these things publicly, so I have to go asking the suppliers to find out how much they deem me worthy of paying. If I can negotiate something nearish to a trade price from one supplier but not another, the price difference between systems could be quite significant.
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13th January 2020, 09:34 AM #10
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13th January 2020, 08:25 PM #11Boucher de Bois
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Having got a few quotes in now, the Blum legrabox is looking good. The Grass option is only slightly cheaper ($200 over 15 drawers), and the Blum supplier has impressed me more with their service - they seem much more on to it and offered a healthy discount straight off the bat.
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