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Old timer said drawer slides are a crutch, got me thinking about my glue joints
I was at a supplier in Dayton picking up some soft-close slides and this retired guy in line behind me starts talking about how we all rely on hardware too much and real cabinet work means the box itself carries the load. He said he never used slides on anything under 24 inches wide, just fixed shelves and well fitted drawers running on wood runners, and called modern stuff a crutch. It got me thinking because he had a point about joinery quality, I've seen plenty of drawers fail at the dovetails long before the slides wear out. But on the flip side, I've also built 200 pound tool cabinets where soft-close slides are the only thing saving my knuckles and the customer's patience. So is he just nostalgic or is there real merit in skipping hardware for smaller pieces? I've been doing this for 14 years and I still don't know if I'm overbuilding the boxes or under thinking the design. Anyone else run into this old school versus new school debate on the job site? How do you decide when hardware actually makes the piece better versus hiding a lazy joint?
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valh3215d ago
Wait, he said he never used slides on anything under 24 inches wide? That is wild to me. A 23 inch drawer with no slides sounds like a nightmare for anyone actually using the thing every day, not just a shop trick. Wood runners can work fine but they wear, they swell with humidity, and the drawer gets sloppy over a few seasons no matter how tight your dovetails are. I get what he is saying about the box carrying its own load, but a good joint and a slide are not enemies, they do two different jobs. Sounds like a guy who built furniture nobody pulled on, and there is a big gap between that and a kitchen.
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