Thread: Whats the secret to ball bearing drawer slides? How to fix?

have you trued spraying a heap pf WD40 in there? could just be the tracks/guides gummed up with crap.

Less than a year old. But no telling what could be in there.
And the WD40 smell is suffocating!

If they're gummed up with crap WD40 won't help.

Any oil based lubricant will act as a magnet for all that fluff that gets generated around and under beds.
Ditch the soft close/push to open and replace with heavy duty standard extension drawer slides
Goliath Heavy Duty Drawer Slide - Pair - 500mm | Bunnings Warehouse

Are you sure it's the slides? Considering the over stuffing, could it be the bottom of the drawer sagging and rubbing on the floor of the bed box.

Was hoping someone would tell me "to use these slides you have to x,y and z".

We paid a ridiculous price for the Kingslides trying to avoid my usual 60%+ ball bearing slide fails.

Drawers are made from 16mm melamine.
Including the bottoms.

Can't recall if the fronts are facades or part of the drawers.

Can it be the sides are weathered out of spec? +/- 2mm etc ?

honestly, my first reaction was that it needed someone to properly diagnose what has gone wrong. There's a myriad of things that could go wrong on something like this that a mechanically minded poke, prod, listen and sniff will significantly assist. Perhaps there's a pair of pyjamas that's fallen over the back and is blocking it, or perhaps the bed frame has twisted, but who knows until a critical eye looks.

Inspecting 3pm Saturday.
Was hoping I would arrive with more of a plan.

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This design excluded drawer handles and called for push to open slides.

I've just remembered that the owner confessed to using their toe to tap drawers open.

Originally Posted by barrysumpter

Was hoping someone would tell me "to use these slides you have to x,y and z".

We paid a ridiculous price for the Kingslides trying to avoid my usual 60%+ ball bearing slide fails.

Sorry, but if you think $40 a pair for drawer runners is ridiculous then you really need to re-evaluate your expectations.

The secret to ball bearing runners is to not use them, you need to start using GOOD under-mount runners; yes, they cost 2-3 times as much, but you will only have to buy and fit them once and you won't have to deal with issues like this.

Push-to-open drawers are very sensitive to extraneous friction - contents touching other surfaces, any alighnment inaccuracies, and subsequent distortions, etc. When we rebuilt our kitchen we eventually went with soft-close rather than push-to-open slides for this reason.

Eight or nine years ago, as practice for a kitchen renovation, I made an eighteen drawer unit for my shed and trialled every type of drawer slide that I could find. My conclusions were:

• Blum undermount was the smoothest and seemed to be the best made,
• Hettich side mount was next,
• Blum side mount was next, but very little perceived difference in top three.
• Other slides were slightly to grossly "rougher" than Blum and Hetich, but priced too close to the leaders. (Some were higher priced!)
• Unbranded bright silver soft close slides sold by both Blum and Hetich dealers were very good value for money.
• Powder painted slides sold by "BigChains" were grossly overpriced crap.

I think you are on the right track. Friction is your enemy. It interferes with the opening mechanism.

Try $35 each. Not a pair. So get stuffed. Joking of course.
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As mentioned have had them working without issues multiple times.

I wouldn't expect ply to shift from weather extremes.
Could be wrong.

Push-to-open drawers are very sensitive to extraneous friction
- contents touching other surfaces, any alignment inaccuracies, and subsequent distortions, etc.

Frak!

Will see how putting a stop before the slow close catches.
Grrrrr

Will mention soft close instead.

Thanks to all.

Blum undermount are the best. They just work.

Originally Posted by riverbuilder

Blum undermount are the best. They just work.

Out of curiosity, as I'm about to start making some cabinetry, but haven't yet found a good source, where are folks sourcing their Blum kit from?